Kingdom Hearts: Origins of The Spare
by Mr. Nobody or YARN
Summary: I never asked for this. My friends decided to set out; I never intended to follow. Why would I even try to leave all that I had, my life and home? But after my world was swallowed by darkness, a legendary weapon chose me to wield it, and finding myself in a new world anyway... I guess the only way to go home and regain my life is fight for it. But that, I am willing to do.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Not sure how serious I am about this story, but after playing the final mix bundle for KH1 and KH2, I just thought I had to try this out!**

 **Plus I need to take a step back from RWBY.**

 **Seriously.**

 **P.S. All credit to respective owners, I own practically nothing, etc.**

 **P.P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I blinked as I looked around, I had woken up in what I knew wasn't my bedroom of a couple of years.

Though in all honesty, it wasn't as though it was all that hard to tell, with all the red light beneath and standing on what seemed to be a giant glowing platform depicting a castle that seemed to be suspended in the middle of a black abyss

' _You have the potential with a strong heart, but chosen already..._ ' the ancient sounding voice reverberated through my mind, making me yelp and look around wildly, ' _Despite you not having the inheritance...a key found its way to you..._ '

I continued glancing around, "What?"

' _In your hand, take this Key. So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be. And you will find me, friend—no ocean will contain you then. No more borders around, or below, or above, so long as you champion the ones you love..._ ' The voice chanted in a low voice, ' _The darkness grows closer, your friends may need you... Will you stand with them?_ '

Right then, light flashed around my hand and my hand automatically seemed to close upon the handle of whatever was forming in my hand.

And with that, promptly found myself looking at some sort of wierd-looking object.

It was weird and crazy looking.

Really.

It had a long silver metal rod that was like a pipe as most of the weapon and at the end there seemed to be a star attached to the rod- jutting from it at a ninety degree angle. At the the top of the longest metal rod was a tip shaped more like a rounded sphere and from the opposite side of the star-end was an arrow-like protrusion. I thought it looked completely impractical and purposeless unless I was trying to hit people with the tip or edge of the top. The hand-guard was square-like in shape and a deep, almost-black blue and rounded at the corners the handgrip was black. Finally from the end, a silver keychain that depicted a single yellow star that was hollow in the middle. I hefted it, trying to feel the weight but it didn't actually feel heavy at all... it was light as air but still solid and there.

But was most troubling of all was that if felt strangely right but not quite… there at the same time.

Its grip was perfect for my hand, almost as if it was made straight for me, but I sure as hell never dreamed up a... whatever the hell this was.

' _A way to guide your heart, a way to protect what you care for, follow it, and you may gain an answer for the questions you ask..._ ' The voice murmured, ' _Fate will come to you, you need only to reach out and take it._ '

I looked at the blade.

' _This keyblade… this 'Starlight' is yours..._ ' the voice intoned.

I looked upwards only to see empty blankness.

I shrugged and held it at my side, deciding to look at the ground. It showed a ruined castle that seemed to be crumbling and surrounded with monsters. At the base of the castle stood a figure dressed in red shorts and a black short sleeved hoodie and what seemed to be a humanoid white thing in blue and guy in green and brown with two long braids of black hair. Wait... that guy was dressed just like my friend Sora! He even had the same type of brown spiky hair! I knelt and brushed my hand against the design on the floor, looking out only to see empty darkness stretch out beyond the circle. I couldn't see anything and straightened, sighing.

Suddenly a slight bubbling sound made me look behind me and I stumbled back in fear as a weird little black creature spawned out from the ground. I yelped and ran from it only to realize I was literally trapped with that thing. It twitched and spasmed as it began to crawl towards me as I retreated, only to stop when my heel brushed the edge of the platform.

"I don't know what to do!" I yelled, hoping that would at least scare them or make that voice tell me something.

' _Fight..._ ' the disembodied voice murmured, ' _There will be times where you must, to defend yourself or to protect those who you hold dear._ '

I looked around wildly, hoping that someone would kill this thing.

' _Use the keyblade!_ ' the voice urged.

My arm suddenly came up and I let out a startled shout as the weird club/sword/thing - which was apparently called a keyblade - in my hand moved to point at the creature.

I swallowed down my fear and took a quick breath.

"What the hell?" I growled, "It's not like I have anything else!"

I charged and with a cry and the creature leapt at me, tiny clawed hands outstretched and bright yellow eyes staring.

I lifted the keyblade and brought my weapon down on thing. My attack landed and the creature bounced away and evaporated in a poof of black smoke. I staggered back and hefted the sword back into a ready stance, as a heart - and I mean a stereotypical heart as though drawn by some kid to show love - literally floated up from the black cloud and vanished.

Suddenly the floor beneath me rocked and I fell onto my ass as I toppled over. Around me pools of black formed and more of the creatures spawned. I quickly got to my feet and attacked, swiping my blade through them as they evaporated around me. Finally one leapt at me and I raised my keyblade to ward it off only for my weapon to be knocked out of my hand by a swipe of that things claws. The keyblade clattered to the floor and slid off the edge into the abyss.

I felt my heart shoot into my throat and desperately ran away from the creature as its head swiveled to face me.

Great, now I had no weapon.

I turned and fell back onto my butt again as three of those things crawled towards me.

"No..." I whispered, "Someone help me!"

' _Call to the keyblade._ ' The voice commanded, ' _Call it back to your hand._ '

I blinked and swallowed around the lump of dread in my throat, closing my eyes and holding out my hand. I thought of the keyblade, imagining it dropping into my hand.

There was a flash light and my hand closed around something. I opened my eyes and stared in awe at the keyblade that was now back in my hand.

I quickly rose back to my feet and glared at the creatures, "Now let's try again!"

I charged the one the left and impaled it through its head before swinging to my right and catching the next one in the face with the keyblade.

The last one turned and leapt and I threw the keyblade at it. The blade cut through it and it exploded into black smoke. I stretched out my hand and imagine the keyblade returning to my hand.

It exploded into blue light and reappeared almost instantly in my hand. And as though it 'woke something in me in a sense, I felt stronger simply holding it.

I grinned, now it was starting to get cool.

' _What do you wish to do?_ ' The voice inquired, breaking into my reverie.

I blinked and my grin faded as I seriously considered that.

It actually was a question I often asked myself.

To me, everyone always knew what they wanted, they had a goal to work towards...

But I never did. I never could find something that truly appealed to me. I held the keyblade close to my face before nodding and holding it at my side.

"I want... to find my way." I replied quietly, "I want to do what's right and give my very best to help who I love... I want to defend what I care for."

Suddenly the floor flipped and I was thrown sideways, and I screamed as I fell off the edge and into the abyss.

As I fell, the voice murmured, ' _Your time approaches, but only if you choose to allow it. Follow your bonds, and you will start on a journey that you could have never imagined..._ '

* * *

My eyes snapped open and I sat up straight in my bed, gasping. I looked around and saw my alarm blaring and with a sigh I pressed the off button before scrubbing a hand over my face.

"That dream felt way too real..." I mused.

"Niji!" My mother called, "Are you up?"

"Yeah!" I called.

I got out of bed and went to the bathroom and showered and brushed my teeth. After that, I quickly threw on my jeans and shirt before tying a grey hoodie around my waist and going downstairs.

I passed by mom and snagged some toast from her plate as I passed by, "Bye mom!"

She swatted at my hand but smiled in amusement, "Going to the islands?"

I nodded eagerly, "Sora, Riku and Kiari are almost ready to set sail! I promised to help them and see them off!"

With that I pecked her on the cheek and left my house.

* * *

I finally tied my boat to the docks and clambered up onto the dock. I saw Sora and Riku sparring on the beach and Kiari watching. I quickly made my way next to her.

"What's the score?"

She turned and smiled at me, "Sora's got 2 and Riku's at 4."

I grinned, "Go Sora! You got this!"

He turned to look and smiled, "Hey Niji-"

Which was about as far as he got before Riku knocked him down face first into the sand.

Both Kairi and I flinched.

Riku grinned, "You should've focused Sora."

Sora glared at his friend silver-haired indignantly, "You cheated!"

I shrugged, "Sorry Sora, that was my fault."

I glanced around, "So how's the boat?"

Sora turned to me, beaming, "We're almost ready! I beat Riku in a race and now I am the captain. Tomorrow, we all cast off!"

I laughed, "That's great! Hope you don't leave and forget me!"

Sora frowned, "We'd never forget! Right Riku?"

Riku chuckled and patted me on the shoulder, "Right."

I laughed and picked up Sora's wooden sword, "So Riku... how about a spar?"

He laughed and leapt back a foot, "Your on!"

* * *

I wiped at my forehead with the back of my hand as I sat on my butt, Riku smiled and rested on the wooden sword, and Sora was laughing while Kiari clapped.

"Not bad. You've improved." Riku said.

I sat up and smiled, "I almost had you!"

Riku scoffed, "Keep dreaming."

I got to my feet and patted my back free of sand, "So, tomorrow. What time will you both be casting off?"

"Noon." Kiari said, "We'll be able to see all sorts of new places! I can barely wait!"

Sora walked up and poked my chest, "You'd better see us off!"

I swatted his hand away with a playful scowl, "Maybe I should come, but I think my mom would worry too much. Still, I wish you guys didn't want to go, I'll miss you."

Riku pounded me on the back, "Hey, even if we are all separated, we are all still together in our hearts. So don't miss us, cause we're still with you."

* * *

I sat on the beach stared out at the sun that was beginning to descend towards the ocean before sunset.

"Hey Niji." Sora called, "What's wrong?"

I turned and shrugged, "I just had this really strange dream... I don't know... I just kinda wish it wouldn't bother me so much."

"You had a weird dream too?" Sora asked, sound surprised.

I looked at him, nodding.

"Huh," he grunted, "Hey, in your dream... were there small monsters?"

I turned to him sharply, "Little black ones? With yellow eyes?"

He nodded, "Yeah! I had a dream where I fought them and then there was this really big one! I managed to beat it but then I woke up."

I frowned, "I fell down a platform in mine..."

Sora put a hand on my shoulder, "Don't worry, it's just a dream right?"

I nodded and smiled, "Right... I'm heading home, I want plenty of sleep so I can be ready to see you three off!"

"Okay." He said.

Sora and I got up and I punched him lightly in the shoulder, "If your the captain, take good care of your friends, Sora. I know you can."

He grinned and replied, "I will."

* * *

The wind rattled against my window and I stared out at the island and the storm brewing above it.

"Man..." I said, "The raft might break under that!"

I was going to lay down again when I saw a familiar figure running through the night.

"Sora?" I said.

I don't know what surged in me, but I felt that I needed to follow.

I threw on my clothes and ran out of the house into the howling wind.

"Sora!" I called as I caught up, "Where are you going?"

He turned and saw me, "I need to save the raft! It could break because of the storm. Riku and Kairi are probably already at the island trying to save it!"

I frowned.

Normally, I would have said leave it, it's not worth it.

' _Follow your bonds..._ '

I nodded, "I'll come too! You might need my help too."

He gave me a quick smile, "Okay! We need to hurry!"

We bolted to the docks.

* * *

When we got there the storm had finally reached the island, and to say things looked bad was a pretty big understatement. Tree were creaking under the sheer force of the wind that was whipping through the area. The waves pounded against the shore, and the black night seemed to almost be tangible presence that pressed down on us.

Sora and I both barely got three feet from the dock when we got the shock of our lives.

The shadowy creatures from my dreams were swarming the island.

Me and Sora shared a glance as I picked up some wooden swords that were in the boat and tossed one to him, "Take it!"

He grabbed it and pointed at part of the island, "Look!"

I saw a familiar figure standing and facing out to sea.

"Riku!" I said, "Go Sora! I will cover your back!"

Sora nodded and I followed close behind, both of us frantically batting at the shadows as they chased us.

* * *

Sora forged on ahead when we finally made it to the walkway to Riku's and Sora's favored sparring area; I meant to follow but was blocked off by the creatures.

Sora stopped and turned to face me, looking torn, "Niji!"

I shook my head and jerked my chin at the end where Riku was standing, "Get Riku, I'll be okay!"

He narrowed his eyes and nodded, running toward the silver haired boy.

I swung my wooden sword, wishing for the weapon in my dreams. The monsters weren't even knocked aside slightly as the wooden sword slipped through them unharmed. I was backing slowly up until my back hit the wall.

I ducked under one of the creatures leaping at me and ran towards where I saw a dark cocoon surrounding Sora and Riku. I fell as a creature tackled my back and leapt away. A ring of them surrounded me and I pointed my sword at them, feeling hopelessly outnumbered. I tried to beat them away but one sliced through my battered wooden sword with ease.

"Niji!" Sora yelled.

There was a flash of yellow and silver and one of the monster in front of me exploded as a silver and yellow weapon was buried in the wood where it had been standing.

Sora pointed at the item, "Use it!"

I saw the keychain and something in my mind clicked into place. I ran and grabbed the weapon by the handle wrenching it from the wood and smashing another of the monsters into smoke as I passed. I stared at the weapon and realized it was a keyblade, it just wasn't like the one in my dream, but it flashed in my hand. Something in my heart seemed to release and warmth ran through me.

For a moment I heard the voice, ' _Do you remember? Your weapon waits... simply call out..._ '

Sora came up on my left and stood ready to fight despite his empty hands, "You okay?"

I nodded, "Is this yours?"

He nodded, "Yeah! After Riku disappeared, I found it in my hand!"

I looked where he and Riku were standing only to see Riku gone.

At that moment, the key in my hand glowed faintly with familiar blue light right where I was touching it. I blinked and nodded, I knew what I needed do. I handed the keyblade back to Sora and focused.

'Call to the keyblade.' I remembered, 'Call it back to your hand.'

I held out a hand and thought of that keyblade I had used.

'Come back to me.' I thought with all my emotion.

I didn't need to hear Sora's gasp to know it worked, a strange feeling of power washed through me like slipping into a warm shower.

"You have one too?" He said.

I stared down at it, the same keyblade as in my dream, but this time it was different.

I could feel how this time, like it fit into my hand.

Just perfect for me.

"I guess so." I said softly before raising my voice to a shout, "Let's take these things out!"

We fought our way down to the beach when Sora tugged on my arm, "Look!"

I turned and saw the entrance to the secret place was now replaced with a white door.

"Kiari must be in there!" He said, already sprinting to the door.

"Sora, wait!" I tried to follow but the shadows began to spawn behind him, separating us. I fell back as I tried to cut through the endless wave monsters. He was already pulling the door open and stepping inside when his shadow rippled. Before I could get close, the shadow grew from Sora's and became a huge monstrous thing that stared down at me. It looked humanoid in shape but there was a heart-shaped hole through its torso and tangled black hair.

"Oh..." I muttered lamely, "That's what he meant by really big one."

I ran away to get some distance when I stopped and stared out at the ocean.

It was flowing upwards, all towards and orb that was gleaming in the sky, the smaller wispier creatures began to sink into the ground, leaving behind the larger monster for me. My eyes widened in disbelief as I noticed my hometown in the distance wasn't even visible. Which meant...

Mom...

Dad...

I turned and felt anger and fury pool in my stomach while a lance of grief wedged itself in my heart, "Alright big guy! I'll take you down on my own!"

Just as I said that, the door that Sora had run through had burst open and Sora came tumbling out. As soon as he stopped, the entire rock face lifted into the air, flying into the orb that was growing bigger and bigger.

Or it was getting closer.

I quickly ran to him and hauled him to his feet, "Did you find Kiari?"

Sora gave me a look that send dread crawling up my spine before he shook his head.

"No..." I whispered, even as the grief began to well higher in my chest, "They can't be gone."

He looked at me but seemed to gain a determination in his demeanor as he placed a hand on my shoulder, "They aren't! Riku said Kairi was coming with us! We'll find them after taking care of that thing!"

I closed my eyes for a moment, pushing down on the uncertainty and pain before shoving it aside.

Sora's keyblade formed in his hand as he took his stance and I stood beside him, "Right!"

The giant monster raised its fist before it swung at us, we both leapt out of the way and saw as its hand melted into a puddle of shadow from which the wispy creatures began spawning.

"I'll take on the little guys! Sora, take on the big guy!" I yelled.

He nodded and we both ran at the Monster. I began to slash at the creatures as they lunged at Sora, defending his back as he focused wholly on slashing the Monster's wrist. It raised its hand after a while and began to fire blasts of purple and black energy at both of us. I ducked away from one and threw my keyblade at another before calling my weapon back immediately to bat the last away. Sora swung his as though he was trying to hit a home run and actually reflected the monster's attacks back at it's head. It stumbled as they exploded at its face and knelt with its head bowed as though it needed to recover. We didn't dither and both rushed it before we begun to attack with our keyblades until it stood up and we stumbled back.

"Sora," I panted, I hadn't been holding back while we had been putting the beatdown on this thing's face, "Did you actually manage to kill this thing?"

Sora shot me a 'I-did-but-don't-distract-me' look.

I grimaced.

Suddenly, I felt as though my center of gravity was shifting and stumbled, almost rising into the air. Sora staggered sideways and caught the edge of some wooden planks that were embedded in the small chunk of sand that remained of our island. The orb had descended much lower while we had been fighting and in out frenzy to kill the monster we hadn't even noticed; now it seemed to be draining the very air around us. I awkwardly ran over to him and he grabbed my wrist before the howling of the wind reached its peak and we both began to rise from the ground. We watched in terrified disbelief as the monster raised its head and floated into the orb, unable to resist it pull.

Sora was sweating and scowling as he held on, but trying to hold us both was going to be too much for him. As much as I wanted to live, I didn't want Sora to die for me by trying to save me.

"You have to let me go!" I yelled, "You can't keep this up!"

"NO!" He roared, "I won't!"

"Sora, it's too la-" I tried to say, but it was all for naught.

With a pained gasp, Sora let go and we both were sucked into the orb.

* * *

 **A.N.**

 **So…**

 **Quick justification for the whole why** **Niji** **has a Keyblade.**

 **From what I gathered from my research, Keyblades actually manifest to people who have strong hearts, they can even appear to being who aren't actually real, such as Data-Sora in Kingdom Hearts: Coded (though that is somewhat debatable as his Keyblade - though implied to be real - used after the destruction of the Data-Keyblade may have simply bypassed the system as he is 'a' Sora). Also people can use Keyblades without the inheritance ceremony so long as they have strong heart and actually touch Keyblades, i.e. Kairi and Aqua in the Radiant Garden (most plausible theory). This can even work for people who actually touch fake Keyblades, i.e. Lea and Ventus in the Radiant Garden (Again this theory isn't entirely sure but is the most plausible) when Lea picks up the wooden keyblade.**

 **So aside from the part that a keyblade chose** **Niji,** **Niji** **did wield Sora's/Riku's Keyblade for a moment to cut down a heartless and it didn't immediately dematerialize from his hand, signifying his ability to wield a keyblade and prompting him to summon his own.**

 **I hope that's a satisfying explanation as to why** **Niji** **can wield a keyblade.**

 **If not… well, sorry.**

 **Also, I chose the Starlight Keyblade because this is a slight AU in which another boy who originally didn't even matter, made choices that drew him into Sora's story as a novice keyblade wielder alongside Sora. The Starlight Keyblade is the default for all the beginning wielders and grows with its wielder and I felt it would be best to use rather than create a new one.**

 **Also his 'dive to the heart' was different... but more on that later.**


	2. Chapter 2

**All credit to respective owners!**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I honestly didn't expect to wake up ever again, so opening my eyes to find me up against the wall was a surprise.

My head lolled down and I found myself looking down at my hand and at the brick alley I was in, trying to see if I knew where I was. Crates were scattered around, but aside from that, it didn't look too remarkable aside from the fact that this wasn't my home. Apparently I landed on one which shattered under the force of my landing.

Well I seemed to be fine… although kinda half-asleep…

I needed to focus.

I tried to shake my head to clear it and immediately regretted the motion as my body SCREAMED bloody protest. I almost passed out from the pain again. I closed my eyes and groaned miserably as sensations began to return to my body. I kinda wished I hadn't woken up so I could have recovered more rather than wake up to a symphony of pain. Then again, the jackhammer going to town on my grey matter and the various aches and pains plaguing my body may have had more to do with the fact that I was wishing I didn't wake at all. I felt like I crash landed here and that didn't do anything to help me figure things out.

After some time just laying on the floor and recuperating, I forced my battered body to it's feet, hissing at pain wracking my body. I saw a crate and staggered over to it, placing a hand on it to try to brace myself with it. I panted heavily and summoned my keyblade - thanking whatever it was that allowed me to still call it to me- before my knees began to buckle. I flipped the weapon into a reverse grip and began to use it as a crutch to walk, lifting myself up. I looked to the right and left, trying to decide where to go. In front of me, there was a door and I limped towards it, pushing aside the pain in my legs.

I almost collapsed with each painful step, almost tumbling when I passed the steps that seemed to lead to a plaza of sorts. I rested against the door to gather my strength and pushed.

It didn't budge and I growled, "Typical…"

With a pained sigh, I limped to the left and down the steps, and I squeezed my eyes shut to try to block out the pain. When I finally got through that crucible, I opened my eyes to see people I had never met milling around the plaza. Some of them gave me odd looks that seemed to border somewhere on pitying and sympathetic.

"Where the heck am I?" I mumbled.

Maybe Sora, Riku, or Kiari were around here. Hell, I wouldn't even mind seeing Tidus or Wakka…

"Sora?!" I yelled, "Riku?! Kairi?! Tidus?! Wakka?! Selphie?! Anyone?! Where are you guys?!"

"Niji?" I heard Sora's voice yell, "Niji, is that you?"

I turned and saw a familiar mop of brown spiky hair; I blinked and rubbed my eyes, "Sora?"

He ran at me and grabbed me by the shoulders, obviously relieved.

My hypersensitive shoulders didn't like that and made that known… viciously.

I yelled in pain and almost fell to my knees before he propped me up, "Niji?!"

I tried to stay conscious but I think my body decided that I was done, and I slipped back into the darkness of sleep as my keyblade slipped from my hand.

* * *

I awoke to something cool, wet, and refreshing being tipped down my mouth. I swallowed the liquid that was filling my mouth and the exhaustion and pain began to fade as I opened my eyes. I was in an unfamiliar room that had a rafter door that was currently shut with a ladder that was pulled up against the ceiling. A grizzled, older-looking guy with blonde hair was leaning against a counter while Sora gently propped my head up and was trickling the red drink from a glass bottle into my mouth.

Sora grinned when he saw me open my eyes, "You're awake!"

I smiled weakly, "Yeah… Hey Sora."

He nodded at the old man, who tilted his head at me, "Well give him the rest of it, it's not like he totally better yet."

Sora nodded and tipped the bottle to my mouth, "Drink this, it's a potion that'll heal you."

I gripped the bottle and pulled it out of his grasp, "I think I can handle that."

I gently tipped the bottle and drank the rest of the liquid. Each swallow soothed more of the pain away and soon I had drained the entire bottle to the drop. Noticing I was on a bench of sorts, I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the edge and got up.

"Thank you Sora." I said, rolling my shoulders to see if I had any kinks.

He shook his head, gesturing at the man behind the counter, "Thank Cid, he was the one who gave me the potion."

I turned to him and rubbed the back of my head, "Thank you, Sir."

He leaned back against the counter with a chuckle, "Not 'Sir', the name's Cid."

I nodded, and began to look around, "Alright… So… How did you find Sora?"

He snorted, "The kid came in dragging you and pleaded for me to help you the moment he saw me. I figured he must've been desperate, so I gave him a potion which he gave to you."

I nodded and began patting my pockets, looking for my wallet so I could find some munny to pay him back with, "I'll pay you back, really!"

I yanked out my wallet and deflated when I realized that I had emptied what was in it into my saving jar yesterday and promptly collapsed to my knees as I realized I had just lost a month's worth of saved allowances.

'All that time wasted…' I moaned in my head.

Seeing my expression, Cid laughed, "It's okay, I hardly need the potions, I can take care of myself well enough."

I nodded uncertainly, remembering that I didn't exactly have anything on me, I had pretty much thrown on the previous clothes I was wearing when I followed Sora, I hadn't even gotten a bag of sorts to hold anything.

Oh well, at least my clothes were comfortable and I grabbed my hoodie.

Though in all honesty, I hadn't expected to be whisked off to what seemed an entirely different world along with Sora that night.

I frown and turned to Sora, "Did you see Riku or Kiari?"

Sora looked down despondently, "No… I don't know where they are…"

That wasn't a good sign, we were both alive but considering that…

I wasn't sure what to do, but Cid spoke up, "They may be around here."

We turned to face him, "What do you mean?"

He pushed off the wall he was leaning against to begin rummaging under his shelf before bringing out a wrapped package.

"This world is known as Traverse Town." He began, "Whenever a world is swallowed by darkness, the surviving inhabitants do usually end up here and keep going. First District's pretty much the only place where we can stay in peace as heartless don't show up here."

"Heartless?" Me and Sora inquired in unison.

He blinked and rolled his eyes before he massaged his forehead, "You don't know what heartless are? Gods boy, I thought you were mauled by them!"

I frowned but the proverbial lightbulb flashed on and I shouted, "Do they look like little black imp-things with two yellow eyes?"

He rolled his eyes but nodded, "Yeah, those are heartless, however Shadows are probably the weakest of the lot."

I gaped, "The weakest? They destroyed an entire world! How in the heck are they weak?"

I mean I assumed the gigantic thing with tangled black hair was the strongest but Sora said he beat it on his own.

He snorted, "Kid, do you honestly think that whatever you fought was all there was to a world going out? You're lucky you survived at all and got here. Anyway, as I was saying, if they do get to this district, my friends and I can usually take care of them."

He patted his wrapped bundle.

I blinked and tilted my head, "What is that?"

With a smirk he pulled off the wrapping to show what seemed to be a sci-fi sort of gun. Just then a loud banging and scratching noises that were coming from the door . Cid grunted and hefted his cannon to hold it at waist-height, stomping towards the door.

He kicked the door open and several of the shadows stumbled back and he roared, "STOP DISRUPTING MY BUSINESS!"

The cannon roared and let out a stream of power that blew the shadows away.

And continued on to scorch the street.

We blinked at the flames that were now burning on the street and the pedestrians screaming to put them out.

"Uh… not to be well… obvious," I began, I probably looked confused, "But shouldn't we do something about that… like maybe put out the fires?"

He swiped at his nose and shut the door, "That'll sort itself out. The heartless usually stay away from the First District unless something really tasty is wandering about here…"

Me and Sora sweatdropped at his casual disregard for what I assumed to be public property damage.

"Well… you guys gonna find your friends?" Cid inquired.

We both shared a look and nodded, and Cid nodded before walking back to his counter, "You got a way to protect yourself?"

Sora and I shared a conspiratorial look and both summoned our keyblades and took our stances.

He blinked and chuckled, "Well then, you better hop to it. I suggest you be careful though, the Second and Third Districts aren't like the first. You'd better safe rather than sorry or you'll lose your heart and become a heartless yourself."

I nodded seriously before pointing at Sora, "I'll keep it in mind, someone has to keep an eye on this guy here."

Sora swatted may shoulder with an affronted look, "HEY!"

* * *

We both left Cid's shop with 3 potions a piece - and my mental note to find a way to pay him back for helping us so much - and ready to take on the second district and whatever heartless we may face. We pushed open the heavy doors and looked around. Suddenly a man ran out from the right only to collapse as a armored heartless chased him. It thrust a hand into his chest and ripped out a crystalized but rounded heart. We both immediately summoned our keyblades, but it crushed the heart and turned to us before leaping up and disappearing in a puff of smoke. Immediately shadows began rising out of the ground and crawling towards us.

"Sora, you ready?" I asked.

"Yeah! Let do this!" He replied.

We dashed forward and began to cleave through the shadows as they leapt out to attack. After slicing through one and stabbing another, I swung at one but it flattened as though it was stamped on the ground; causing me to miss. It squirmed under my feet and was crawling toward's Sora, who was dealing with another shadow.

"Sora, behind you!" I yelled.

He half-turned and saw the shadow but began to stop to deal with one that was trying to tackle him.

I ran at him and flung my keyblade, screaming, "GO!"

The keyblade sliced into the shadow about to tackle Sora, sending it tumbling down before evaporating. Sora followed through on his turn and slammed his keyblade into the shadow's back just as it began to rise from its two-dimensional form. The last shadow lunged at me and I rolled under it before calling my keyblade back to my hand and slicing through it. We both straightened and looked around when I noticed there was a bunch of square-like objects glinting on the floor and scattered around us.

"Hey…." I said as I picked one up, "Is this…?"

"Munny…" Sora said, scratching his head.

I blinked more than a little confused, "We can earn munny by killing these things? That's… oddly convenient."

We began to gather the munny before we both looked around to scan the surrounding area.

"We need to agree on a starting point." I said, "Wandering aimlessly like this is only going to slow us down."

Sora rubbed his chin, "How about… we check the plaza, then the clocktower, and then the alleyways?"

I nodded, "Okay, but if anyone here, they might not be able to defend themselves…"

Sora nodded a grim expression on his face, he understood exactly what I meant. We got lucky by having keyblades, but if someone didn't have an effective weapon against the heartless they probably weren't going to make it. They didn't have delusions about fighters like Tidus or Wakka, who even we could defeat rather handily. Riku was definitely stronger and even we managed to occasionally get the edge over him and win.

We didn't even want to think about Kairi or Selphie.

We couldn't take our time.

* * *

Okay, we had to stop.

At least for a minute.

We both panted as we slumped against the fountain with an image with two dogs on it. I sat on the edge and splashed my face with some water, trying to get my breath back. We didn't want to use up our potions in case there was an emergency, and getting ourselves killed wasn't going to help anyone. We had run into the plaza but only ran into a veritable of the shadows that kept coming no matter how many we cut down. When we finally cleared the plaza, we made out way up to the clock tower, and if anything that place was even worse, we both were nearly buried under than massive amount of heartless that spawned. Then we scoured the first alley next to the clocktower and - you guessed it - more heartless. When we finally got to the Third District, we were more than a bit peeved and definitely beyond tired. We barely beat down the remaining heartless before we stopped to catch our breath.

"God…" I growled, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie, "If I never see a stupid heartless again, it'll be way too soon."

"Agreed." Sora sighed, he looked around before sighing desolately, "Well, that's all three districts… no sign of them…"

I pushed myself back to my feet with a sharp exhale and tied my hoodie around my waist, "Let's see if Cid can point us in a new direction. If we have enough munny, we can also buy some more supplies and pay him back for the potions."

It was needless to say that I gathered all the currency, making sure to grab it all. With all the slain heartless' munny, we should be able to definitely get some better supplies than just potions.

"Cid's shop is an accessory shop." Sora said, "We can ask him for the directions to the item shop right after we pay him back."

"Sounds good." I said, "Lets go."

"Actually," Sora said, "I wanted to ask you something."

I turned to him, "Yeah?"

"So I saw you throw the keyblade and then catch it, do you just call out out to it to return to your hand when you hit what you wanted?" He asked.

I nodded, "Yeah. It actually happened the first time in my dream, my voice told me how to call my keyblade back. I just made that work when I threw my keyblade and came up with it off the top of my head."

Sora grinned, "That's awesome! I can't believe I haven't thought of that!"

I smirked before walking off, "You know if you actually use that thing in your head called a brain a bit more, you might have thought of it before I used it in real life!"

Sora gaped before scowling and yelling, "Hey, you got instructions! I'm learning off the top of my head!"

* * *

We both were careful despite the fact that we had only recently cleared out the Second District, there was no telling when the heartless would return, so we kept our eyes open and made sure to hurry back to the First District. When we got there however, shadows immediately began erupting out of the ground. We both conjured our keyblades and began to fight.

"I thought the First District was safe!" I growled as I stomped down on a shadow's head before impaling it.

"Cid said that was most of the time!" Sora responded as he swung his keyblade in a wide arc through two shadows.

We managed to make our way to Cid's shop, only to find it locked.

"Damn!" I hissed as I pulled on the handle which remained closed.

"They'll come at you out of nowhere." A voice said quietly.

Sora and I both whipped our heads to the side and drew away, holding our keyblades at the ready.

"Who are you?" Sora demanded.

"And they'll keep on coming at you." The owner of the voice continued on heedlessly, pointing at Sora and my weapons, "As long as you both continue to wield a keyblade."

He was guy probably about twenty-something, he wore a short leather jacket over a white shirt with a lion-head necklace handing from his neck. He had on black jeans and black gloves that had two belts looped around his left hand. His eyes were a concrete grey and he had long brown hair that came down in spikes down his back and around his face, which had a scar that ran diagonally across his face over the bridge of his nose.

"But why?" He inquired quietly, putting a hand to his forehead, "Why would it choose kids like you?"

"Hey," Sora said indignantly, "what's that supposed to mean?!"

Personally, I took offense to be called a kid, but I was more worried about how he snuck up on us without us noticing.

"Never mind." He said as he walked towards us, right hand reaching out to us, "Now, let's see those Keyblades."

"Like hell!" I growled, holding my keyblade in my stance.

Almost in sync, Sora dropped into his stance and replied, "What? There is no way you're getting this!"

We both blinked as he drew a massive sword that seemed to be coming out of a barrel of a revolver and hilt.

"All right," he said, slashing the sword down before gripping it with both hands, "then have it your way."

* * *

 **You're probably wondering why** **Niji** **had such a bad wake up? Well, I imagine it as him and Sora dropping out of the sky, and** **Niji** **landed in a crate.**

 **Sucks to be him.**

 **Also** **Niji** **thinks a bit more like I do back when I was his age, and I always wondered why Sora never called the keyblade and always relied on magic to do long range damage when he could always call it back to him. I always though Sora didn't really need magic for that attack and well, it just seemed like he had a much better long-range option.**

 **Then again, I never considered the graphics weren't up to par.**

 **Ah well.**

 **ALSO! ALL CREDIT TO RESPECTIVE OWNERS!**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Credit to respective owners!**

 **BTW, a reviewer left a very valid point.**

 **Human interaction and how it wasn't my best point.**

 **To be utterly honest… I well and truly SUCK at that. Both IRL and NRL I constantly alter what I think and say, switching and changing personas and attitudes (which is due to my utterly screwed up and broken psyche and not knowing who I am and all that jazz) faster than the music pace when I accidentally thump my sensitive earbuds. Practically all of my writing up until this point HAD a basis for interaction though. The characters I used reacted to things in ways I could observe and somewhat and replicate in a psuedo-believable fashion. It's actually one reason I started this fic, I wanted to see if I could introduce a believe OC into a well crafted story and have him mesh well.**

 **Practice makes perfect after all.**

 **Depending on how this does, I may abandon it, or finish it, OR give it up for adoption.**

 ***unbothered shrug***

 **Anywho, you guys probably don't need to hear/read all that and sooooo…**

 **ONTO THE STORY!**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

Things went from worrisome to downright horrible in an instant of the 'battle' starting.

The man leapt with a speed that was just unfair with a sword that big, and came right at us. Sora and I both leapt aside, diving to the right and left respectively. He came down and swept his blade up at Sora, who raised his keyblade in a desperate guard and was sent skidding back despite blocking the blow, falling off balance when he slid to the stairs and tumbling down into the plaza. I lunged at the man's back only for him to casually cross his blade behind him and catch my attack. With a swift turn, he pushed my blade off and brought his sword down in a one-handed downward chop. I desperately slashed Starlight to my left, catching the chop and using the force to slide to the right. Almost casually, the man back-handed me and sent me flying away into the door of the item shop.

Suddenly, the man stumbled forward with a grunt as Sora's keyblade thunked against his back. Frowning, he turned to see Sora on his feet and his keyblade materializing in his hand. He stalked towards Sora as he held his blade up in front of him. To my shock, fire swirled in front of him and shot out in a fireball. Sora's eyes widened and he rolled to the side as the flames exploded on the ground where he had been standing. As I got to my feet, the man began shooting more and more of the fireballs that had Sora dodging and diving out of the way. When there was finally a slight pause, Sora pivoted on his heel and dashed at the man before leading an assault that was easily fended off. I got back to my feet and ran in to join; although my assistance didn't exactly help in any real way.

The man still weaved through our assault with enviable ease and sent us sprawling when he hit us or we failed to react in time; repaying any blow we managed to land with excessively strong force and then some.

I staggered away and took a moment to catch my breath and see if I could think of something in order beat him. felt like I had more bruises than I could count and slumped as I used Starlight as a crutch for the second time that day. With a burst of dismayed clarity, I realized that no matter what we thought of, we weren't going to be able to beat him. He was much more skilled, stronger, and faster than either Sora or I; that was without counting the fact that both Sora and I were already exhausted from traversing the districts and hadn't rested up. We would have to try something unexpected and hope that we could catch him off guard against it. A slightly interesting idea sparked and after a moment of praying and bracing myself, I ran at the fray and flung Starlight at our opponent as hard as I could.

"Sora, duck!" I yelled as I approached.

Sora ducked away from a wide swipe and backpedaled, Starlight spinning past him at our opponent. The man swiped his blade at Starlight only for it to vanish into motes of light as it dematerialized in the air. I leapt at him, Starlight already materializing in my hand as he tried to bring his now off balance weapon around to defend himself. I brought my keyblade down to hit him in the shoulder with a downward swipe. He grunted in pain as he shifted down and caught me with his free hand before tossing me bodily into one of the lampposts that were in the city plaza. I cried out in pain as my back hit the metal and landed in a heap at the base of the lamppost, my mind swimming and vision blurring. I moaned weakly as I struggled to rise before giving up entirely and let the darkness take me I passed out.

* * *

When I slowly was dragged back into the land of the living, I was laying on a soft and comfortable mattress and frankly felt a lot better than I had when I passed out fighting that guy.

Wait…

My eyes snapped open as that last thought crossed my mind and I sat straight up. I scrambled out of the bed as I scanned the room to see the man from before leaning against the door and some girl with black hair and dressed like a beach-goer, or at least that's how it looked to me. I scowled as I saw both Starlight and Sora's keyblade propped next to the man. I cursed when I saw Sora still conked out on the bed in the corner of the room. I stretched out my hand and Starlight reappeared in my hand.

I dashed over to the bed to put Sora behind me, "Back off!"

The man sighed and straightened while the girl raised an eyebrow at him, "You overdid, didn't you, Squall?"

He closed his eyes as he massaged his face, "It's Leon."

I pursed my lips and considered my options, which weren't good. Fighting would get me nowhere, the man probably could have beaten Sora and I even earlier if he had wanted to, and that wasn't even mentioning the girl. I considered breaking one of the windows and slinging Sora over my shoulder, but even if I managed to get outside, I had no way of knowing where I could be. Cid had only given us a very basic overview of the Districts, if I got lost, it wouldn't end well if I got attacked by heartless while having to carry Sora.

Hell there might not be a ledge, I might not even be on the first floor of whatever building we were in, and I might just end up in a alley with my back to the wall.

"Calm down, kid." Leon said, giving me a flat look as I pointed my keyblade at him.

I scowled, "Yeah, just lower my guard against the guy who beat me and my friend up and smile like that's fine. Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"At least dismiss your keyblade." The girl said, her voice from behind me, I flinched and whirled to see her perched on the end of Sora's bed.

How in the hell did she get past me?

"You'll only attract the heartless if you don't." She continued cheerfully.

Damn, no chance to grab Sora and bolt. I glared at them both, but decided to listen. I didn't know if I could trust them, but I wasn't in any position to try anything; plus, any info I could get would be welcome and probably would help me out later. I sighed and let go of my keyblade, and it vanished into light before it hit the ground.

"Fine…" I growled, "So can you explain what - EXACTLY - you wanted without beating me into unconsciousness?"

"Wait for your friend… Sora, was it?" Leon queried.

I nodded.

"When he wakes, then we can get it all out of the way." Leon said.

"Alright…" I mumbled, I turned to the girl, "So… can I get your name?"

"Glad you asked!" She said, leaping off the bed with a flip and flourished bow in front of me, "I am the Great Ninja Yuffie!"

I blinked in slight astonishment before cocking my head and replying with a somewhat bemused, "Um… okay?"

Her shoulders slumped in disappointment in what I assumed to be my lackluster response.

* * *

When the meet-and-greet was over and Sora finally woke up and he mistook Yuffie for Kairi - which was worrying considering the only thing that was even remotely similar was their hair, and that was only by length - Leon and Yuffie began the explanation. Apparently there were different world that existed, however they hadn't been connected, at least until now. Heartless were apparently creatures that took hearts and were apparently drawn to those with darkness in their heart. When someone lost their heart, the darkness in their heart would manifest into heartless, the more darkness, the stronger the heartless that came. They were trying to swallow all the worlds in darkness and apparently our island had fallen to the darkness and we were lucky to escape intact. The heartless, however, they feared the keyblade, but were willing to attack any keyblade wielder in the hopes to take their heart.

"So we're basically heartless bait?" I yelled, dismayed at the general situation.

"I didn't ask for this!" Sora said.

"They keyblade chooses its wielder." Yuffie replied, "And it chose you two."

Leon waved a hand dismissively, walking back to the door to lean against it, "So tough luck."

"What about me? Isn't their only one keyblade?" I inquired.

If it was such a legendary weapon, it was practically divine law that there be only one.

Right?

Leon shook his head, "I'm no expert… I thought there was really only one, but apparently it's not the only weapon of its kind. Count yourself lucky, it's probably due to its influence you even survived the fall of your world."

After a moment to let that thought sink it, Yuffie turned to Sora and me.

"Have you heard of Ansem?" Yuffie asked.

We both shook our heads.

"Who is he?" I asked, "An old keyblade wielder or warrior like that?"

"No." Leon said, "He was a scientist who was studying the heartless and recorded everything meticulously in a journal."

Sora hopped up to his feet, "Then lets get it! It might have a way to get back my world and return to it!"

I opened my mouth to second that, but was cut off.

Leon sighed, "That's not going to be easy…"

"Why not?" I said, standing up straighter, "If we all work together, I'm sure we could find out where we need to go and work on getting the book back together!"

I still was dubious when it came to Leon and Yuffie, but to be honest, any help was appreciated; most of what they said seemed to make some sense.

Sora survived, and he had a keyblade.

I survived, and I had a keyblade.

We both hadn't been able to find anyone from our world and they didn't have a keyblade and so either the keyblade saved us or we just got incredibly lucky.

And luck was never something I considered to be counted on wholeheartedly.

"It's not that." Leon said, "The problem is that the journal itself was torn apart and scattered across the worlds. To find all the pages and then reassemble it… you'd need to find a way to traverse the paths between the worlds. Without that, it's not going to matter even if we knew where each page was."

I collapsed onto the bed with a disappointed sigh, "So we're stuck here? There's gotta be a way to get out of here to other worlds!"

He shrugged, "Maybe you can. Yuffie, let's go join Aerith. She should be there with the other visitors by now."

Yuffie instead yelled, "Leon!"

She pointed at a corner of the room where a armored heartless was manifesting and landed with a clatter.

"Yuffie, go!" Leon commanded as he swiped his hand through the air and drew his sword with his right.

I summoned my keyblade as Sora and Leon both fell into their stances.

"Lets go!" Leon growled.

And he smashed the heartless out the window before vaulting off the balcony onto the streets below.

We both leapt out of the shattered window and took got ready to fight.

"Don't bother with the small fry, find the leader and destroy it!" Leon said as he easily fended off some of the heartless.

Leon slashed through a heartless and kicked another one into the small stream of water; he dashed to a red door and jerked his head at it.

"This heads to the Second District! Don't bother with the small fry; see if you can find the heartless boss that's in Traverse Town!" He said as he went through the door, "I have to protect the First District!"

Sora and I nodded but were almost buried as three of the armored heartless decided that they were done listening to us talk and charged. I dived under a wide-armed hug into the the shallow stream of water and rolled to a crouch while Sora ducked away from another. I backpedaled as two of the heartless decided I was their target and began to attack. I immediately noticed that they were definitely stronger and faster than the previous heartless and had some sort of whirlwind roundhouse kick that they used very liberally. I jumped back and imitated Leon, kicking one of the heartless in the stomach with all the force I could muster.

The heartless bent over my leg (at least I could hit them with my physical body) and I wasted no time in stomping down on that foot to propel myself forward. It seemed to have the wind knocked out of it (did it even NEED to breathe?) and drove my keyblade straight into its head. It exploded into shadows and twirling, I swept my keyblade behind me to drive the other heartless back before slamming the tip of my keyblade into the ground. I then used a move Sora had once demonstrated back on the islands, and used the keyblade as a solid point to drive myself off of into a sliding attack that knocked the heartless feet out from under it. I quickly took the moment it fell to bring my keyblade down on its back. I took a moment to straighten and sighed slightly as I drew back.

Two down, billions to go.

I clambered out of the stream and dashed to aid Sora who was fending off three of them with his keyblade. As it turned out, he didn't need the help. He slashed one through the waist and blocked one of the others' set of claws before knocking it down with a elbow to its chest and impaling it. He rolled away from the last one as it executed a cyclone kick that missed and left it off balance; Sora didn't dither, and threw his keyblade at the heartless and killing it. We stood side by side and I sighed at my soaked clothing, taking off my hoodie and wringing it out as thoroughly as I could before tying it around my waist. Suddenly, more armored heartless began to spawn around us and Sora quickly recalled his keyblade.

"Oh come on," Sora growled, quickly angling his keyblade in front of him, "We need to get out of here!"

I nodded and we both bolted for the door that Leon had taken and soon found ourselves next to the fountain of the Second District. I glanced around hoping to see a heartless that looked like the leader, but there wasn't anything there that seemed to signify something special. We began to jog across the plaza, heading for the third district. Suddenly, shadows and armored heartless began materializing and stalking towards us. I clicked my tongue and discarded the notion of summoning my keyblade, there was no point in using it if all it would do is tire me out by dealing with small fry.

"Remember what Leon said!" I yelled, "We need to find the boss of the heartless! These guys will just slow us down and tire us out!"

Sora ducked away from a heartless intent on beheading him and sidestepped another, "Third district?"

I jumped back as a shadow smashed into the ground where I was standing, "If you don't mind, that sounds great! Now go!"

We both bolted across the plaza and tried to ignore the clatter of heartless following us as we sprinted down the alleyway that led to the third district. As we finally burst through the doors and slammed them shut behind us, I allowed myself to sit against the door and slump slightly. I dug into my pocket and fished out one of the potions, relieved that Leon and Yuffie hadn't taken it off me.

"Sora," I said, "Take a potion, if the boss is here, we can't afford to be exhausted."

He blinked and smiled, "Right, good idea."

Sora dug one out and drenched himself in it, I watched in somewhat bemused confusion as I gulped my down.

"Sora… don't you have to drink those?" I asked him.

He waved his hand in a dismissive way, "Actually, they work if you pour them over yourself and injuries too."

I blinked, that was something I was glad to know before I got into any real fights, uncorking the flask and then bringing it to my lips to guzzle it all down did require a certain amount of focus mid-fight. I had to be aware of when there was a gap in the fight to do so. After fighting dozens of shadows and armored heartless, I was able to get a decent grasp on what exactly their fighting style was like. I could predict when to gain distance to drink a potion or just get out of the way, but I was sure there was more than just those heartless in the worlds and Leon had mentioned that there was a way to get to the other worlds…

I stood up and stretched before summoning my keyblade, looking around, "Let's get moving."

Sora nodded and we both just jogged down to the third floor plaza when there was a big explosion above us. Sora and I looked up and we both scrambled to get out of the way but before we could get too far, two figures crashed right down on Sora.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Guest review does bring up a fair point of me not having described** **Niji** **in any capacity beyond his clothing which boiled down to a grey hoodie…**

 **So…**

 **He has dark black-blue hair (almost pure black) that is similar to… Ephemera in style except that it doesn't curl at all and falls down with a slight wild ruffle rather than curl upward.** **Niji** **is fair-skinned with blue eyes that are like faint light filtering to the bottom of the sea. He wears a grey hoodie with a black wing shedding feathers depicted on the back and down the right sleeve. He wears a plain and black tank-top/undershirt under the hoodie. He also has on black jeans that have a silver lined, blue criss-cross pattern down one pant leg and finally wears black boots. Later, he may gain some accessories for that ensemble, but that is his base look.**

 **Also, Unlike alot of stories that revolve around Sora, I personally don't like the idea that Mickey would just leave Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy, without any thing but "find the key". He has most definitely encountered heartless and - in my AU - has left them some of his notes on the keyblade's abilities and heartless as he is probably master-class in keyblade technique. He probably is second only to Yen Sid at this point as an keyblade wielder as Yen Sid is retired (and Mickey is a master and is - from what I checked - implied to be so).**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I blinked at what seemed to be a short humanoid duck and man-sized humanoid dog lay on top of Sora in a pile. Both of them were wearing clothing, the duck had on a zipper covered blue jacket of sorts while the dog was dressed in a pair of yellow pants, a greenish shirt, with a black vest thrown on top.

I instantly recalled the dream with the stained glass floor, these were…!

They both seemed to shake the dizziness off before they saw Sora's keyblade - which was held out in front of him - and their eyes widened.

"The Key!" They chorused.

Just then, the ground rumbled and sections of the plaza rose up, cutting off the path to the second district and around the fountain. I whirled and got in my stance as heartless began to appear on top of the columns of rock and began clattering towards us. I kicked one in the face and spun, Starlight flashing in the light of the fountain as I knocked another one into the aforementioned structure. Then the two who had fallen out of the sky began to fight and it was clear that they were both seasoned combatants. The dog was incredibly skilled at guarding, covering our backs when Sora and I were brawling with the shadows while knocking other heartless down with shield bashes. The duck, on the other hand, was waving his wand/club and calling out incantations of 'freeze', 'fire', or 'thunder', unleashing bursts of elements that decimated the heartless around us.

Admittedly, it wasn't like we were the best fighting group to grace the worlds, but considering that we had only just met, we definitely weren't too shabby.

Soon under our combined assault, the plaza was soon clear as the last few shadows and armored heartless evaporated.

A rattling sound caught our attention and we turned to see what seemed like a giant pair of armored gauntlets, metal boots, and a cylindrical metal tube with a black stylized heart emblazoned on it fell to the ground with a loud clang. The metal gauntlets bounced high into the air and positioned themselves high on the giant cylinder whereas the legs slid into position beneath it. Slowly all the pieces began to hover while what looked like a knight's helmet floated down from the sky and landed at the top. Suddenly the entire thing vibrated as the legs began to stomp and the arms spun around it while making grabbing motions.

"That… looks like the boss…" I mumbled dumbly.

Its head swiveled to face us and its two hands shot out toward us with high speeds. I scrambled out of the way and threw Starlight at it, knocking its head back. Sora and the duck followed up, Sora hacking at its body while the duck shot out a blast of fire at it. It - assuming the mask had eyes - looked over at us and its feet suddenly stomped towards me completely free of the body while it began to throw its fists at Sora and the duck. I yelped and ran away, the feet pounding behind me with each colossal step. Suddenly the dog ran by me and shield bashed the legs, which stumbled and clattered lifelessly to the ground.

Me and the dog both beat at the legs - denting them with each blow - until they both shook and shot back up before they clattered over to the main body. I growled and rushed at the heartless and with a yell; threw my entire weight behind a single strike at on of the legs, which cracked and finally exploded into wispy shard of darkness. I stumbled as I was now off balance and about to move back when the main body spun like a top and smashed into me, sending me sprawling to the side.

"Niji!" Sora yelled.

I groaned and tired to push myself to my hands and knees when the foot kicked me into the fountain with a splash. Through the sound of water and bells in my ears, I vaguely heard Sora shouting angrily and the sound of lighting crackling. I tried to sit up only to collapse back as I choked and coughed the water from my mouth and cringed in pain at my injured side; the pain deep and throbbing in my stomach. I felt like the damn thing had broken a bone inside me, and it ached if I tried to move. I just managed to sit up when a green glow lit the air around me and I gaped in astonishment as the pain immediately faded away.

"What the heck…?" I murmured.

I shook my head - I could ponder over what just happened later -and scrambled back into the fray, side-stepping a flying fist and rolling away from a foot stomping down on me. I wasn't going to let myself get caught in an attack like that so easily. Sora - teeth grit in anger - swung hard with the keyblade and shattered one of its fists before landing and rolling away as the foot came down on him. He barely got to his feet before a flying, gauntleted fist tagged his shoulder and sent him crashing to the ground. I snarled and made to attack when the dog threw his circular shield which smashed into the head of the heartless, distracting it. I didn't waste time and moved to the other hand, launching at it and slicing and attacking with all I had. The duck launched a fireball at the hand which exploded as the fire hit it. I didn't waste any time in moving away as the last limb stomped towards me to try and flatten me.

"It only has a single leg left! If we get those, we can focus on the main body!" I yelled.

Apparently, the heartless took offense to me yelling about that and its main body flew into the air and came hurtling down at me. I yelped - in a manly fashion I assure anyone asking - and threw myself to the side as it landed with a loud crash. Sora took advantage of it being stunned by its own impact and began beating on its main body, his keyblade beginning to dent it in. The lone leg rattled and Sora rolled away as it scraped across the ground where he was, almost sideswiping him.

As the main body made to rise, all of us traded looks and an understanding passed.

The duck raised his staff which crackled and glowed, the dog threw his shield, Sora threw his keyblade and I flung Starlight with all my strength. Both Sora and my keyblade flashed as streams of light spilled out of the tips and followed the rotation of our spinning keyblades, making them glimmer like stars. The attacks converged on the as lightning crashed down from the heavens and all hit the main body. The heartless' leg shattered like glass hit by a hammer and multiple cracks - spilling out white wisps of light - began to form along the main body. When the shine from the attacks faded, the main body shook erratically and the head of the armor tilted before falling off and landing on the ground with a heavy clang. Light erupted from the heartless' top and a huge heart floated out into the sky before fading away; the body and head both were surrounded by swirling white energy and petals of light before they faded out of existence as well. We stood there for a moment, blinking at the now empty plaza where we had just been fighting as though unsure the battle was well and truly over.

The only sound left was the trickling of water from the fountain and our heavy panting.

"We… we did it…" I murmured, "We beat that thing…"

Sora was grinning openly and the duck and dog both relaxed.

"Hell yeah!" I roared, throwing my hands up in celebration.

* * *

So as it turned out, beating that heartless had suddenly cowed the remaining heartless into fleeing and now the four of us - plus Leon and Yuffie - were talking in the third district plaza.

"So you were looking for us?" Sora queried, gesturing to himself and I.

Leon cut in after the duck and dog nodded, "They too have been seeking the wielder of the keyblade."

"Hey, why don't you both come with us? We can get to different worlds using our vessel." The dog offered.

Sora looked down, "I wonder if we could find Riku or Kairi…"

"Of course!" The duck replied immediately.

I frowned in suspicion as the dog whispered to the the duck and the duck replied, jabbing a thumb in our direction. I took a step in their direction, intent on figuring out exactly what they were mumbling about.

However, Leon spoke before I could question the two, "Niji. Sora. Go with them. Especially if you want to find your friends."

Sora was looking down still unsure, "Yeah I guess…"

I was about to say something to encourage him, but the duck stepped up.

"But you can't come with us looking like that, understand?" The duck said in an almost scolding tone, "No frowning. No sad face, okay?"

"Yeah," The dog added, leaning very close to the duck's face, "Ya got to look funny, like us!"

The duck shoved the dog away and continued, "This boat runs on happy faces."

"Happy?" Sora mumbled.

I stared at him, I knew him well enough to understand what he was going to do. I smirked as everyone else waited and the dog and duck looked closely at his shadowed face. Finally, he looked up with the stupidest and biggest toothy smile I ever saw him give anyone ever. We all stared at him for a moment and he began to look uncertain, but I began to titter slightly before cracking up.

We all lost the battle with control and began laughing openly.

I struggled to breath, clutching my sides, "Oh god, Sora!" I gasped, "Your face!"

"That's one funny face!"

Sora smiled and nodded, "Okay, why not? I'll come with you guys."

I nudged him with my elbow, "Don't forget me. If you're going, you're probably gonna need someone to be responsible."

Sora shot me a scowl but was interrupted by the duck holding out a hand, "Donald Duck."

The dog moved forward, "Name's Goofy."

Sora and I both shared a look and grinned as we moved forward.

"I'm Sora." He introduced.

"And I'm Niji." I added.

We placed our hands atop Donald's and Goofy hands before he said, "All for one, one for all!"

* * *

Before we left Traverse Town, I settled our tab with Cid and went to the item shop and bought some ethers and more potions. When we got underway, we boarded what seemed to be an orange and yellow vessel called the gummi ship.

"Neat ship you guys got." I said, "So this can get us to the other worlds?"

"Yep." Goofy said, "If we want to find the king, we need to search everywhere we can!"

"Thing king?" I asked.

Donald turned on his chair to face Sora and I, "Right, our king - King Mickey - left the castle in search of a way to stop the worlds from going out as stars were slowly vanishing. He told us to find the key and then go and find him while sealing the worlds from the darkness."

Sora frowned, "But how do we do that?"

At this point a cricket jumped out of Goofy's pocket and landed on Goofy's knee, "I think I can help with that, The name's Jiminy Cricket, Royal Chronicler. I was told to hold onto a few notes on the keyblade and heartless before I left with Donald and Goofy to record the journey we are on."

"Um… How exactly do you even lift a pen?" I said, already bemused by the sight of a talking cricket and deciding to just brush past it.

I was going to guess that things would only get more and more absurd from here on in and getting hung up on the details was only going to give me a headache.

Jiminy pulled out a small book and equally small pen and gave me a 'well?' look.

"Right," I said, rubbing the back of my head and giving a sheepish smile, "I'm sorry. Please continue."

"From what I read while waiting around, the keyblade has the ability to lock the hearts of the worlds and keep the heartless from devouring the world and plunging it into darkness." Jiminy informed, "All we need to do if find the keyhole for each world and use the keyblade on it. That should prevent the heartless from getting at the world's heart and devouring it."

Sora nodded at that, "So we need to find the keyhole for each world's heart and then use our keyblade to seal it?"

Jiminy nodded, "That's the long and short of it."

I leaned back in the chair I was sitting in, "Do they mention where the keyholes are?"

Jiminy looked through a sheaf of tiny papers that had been folded into a pouch of his journal.

After a moment, he shook his head with a sigh, "No… We'll have to find them as we go."

I frowned but sighed, "Ah well, hopefully they won't be too hard to find..."

Sora shrugged, "We won't know till we try."

I tilted my head toward him in acknowledgement before blinking as I remembered something, "Oh! By the way, I wanted to ask if either of you know healing spells or something."

Donald swiveled his head towards me, "Yeah."

"Did you heal me when I was kicked into the fountain?" I asked

He nodded.

"Thank you." I said, smiling, "Really Donald, thanks."

He turned away but mumbled something like, "You're welcome."

* * *

 **And there you have it! Another chapter done! It's a bit short, but I wanted to emphasize the fight with the Guard Armor more than anything else in this chapter. Anyway, enough of that!**

 **Next stop, Wonderland!**

 **Let's drop down the rabbit hole!**

 **-YARN**


	5. Chapter 5

**Enjoy!**

 **Oh, right, almost forgot!**

 **All credit to respective owners and reviews are loved!**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

Sora and I clashed once again as our keyblades crashed against each other in a shower of sparks. I jumped back and away as Sora let up the force on his keyblade completely, hoping to make me lose balance. I got back in my stance and immediately readied myself as Sora dropped back into his stance. We charged at each other again and the sound of metal hitting metal increased in tempo as we both began to strike at each other in another bout. I ducked away from a swing, backpedaled, and pointed my keyblade's tip at him.

"Burn!" I commanded.

A fireball erupted from the tip of my keyblade and Sora hastily raised his keyblade to aim at me and yelled, "Fire!"

His fireball intercepted mine and both exploded in a wave of fire.

It had been a good thing to ask if the gummi ship had a few other rooms for practice and the like. My fight with the guard armor made me realize that while I was okay at fighting, I needed to be a lot stronger if I wanted to keep beating heartless. From what Jiminy had told me, it seemed that heartless changed from world to world, form being more suited for each environment. So basically, what I did in one world may not be the best in another against a different type of heartless. Sparring with Sora was a good way to make sure that we both were growing, and if nothing else we weren't bored. Also since we had some time and Goofy had apparently taken control for a bit, Donald had decided to teach us a single spell so we weren't wholly reliant on our keyblades to fight or flinging them to hit enemies out of our immediate range.

It was the fire spell, the most basic of all magic spells.

The first thing Donald had told us was to meditate.

My mother and father both were actually really into the whole breathing and meditation exercises -and as all parents inevitably do to their kid when they find something they think is healthy - and they invited/cajoled/threatened me to join until I complained enough that they gave up. So I knew the mechanics and while I wasn't exactly a yoga prodigy, the meditation wasn't at all as bad as it could have been. It was at least quiet and relaxing and frankly I didn't mind it now that I was older and well... knew it would help me to learn magic, which was invaluable.

So it was good.

Or it should have been had I not been next to Sora…

He was restless the entire time. While he was prone to taking naps in the sun and goofing off when he could, when he was awake, he was Rambunctious (note the capital R) as hell. He was constantly shifting and letting out irritated huffs when he was trying to focus. It took a good long while until he was silent and in the correct mindset (more or less).

So once that crucible was over, we were supposed to fine our magical core, and feel its power within us. Then when we thought we had a good grasp on it, try to imagine the feel of a fire, the heat, sparks, color. Once we had that, we needed to let that feeling and memory fill us up on the inside until it was almost as though we were on fire.

Grasp that feeling and -

"Fire!" Sora and I yelled.

Admittedly, our first few attempts produced little more than sparks, and it took us a good few hours to actually form a decent sized fireball that didn't explode on our face or slight puffs of orange flame. However, under Donald's supervision, soon we had a firm grasp on the concept and were able to fire mildly decently balls of fire. It wasn't even worth comparing to anything Donald could do, but I figured he had years of practice on using magic over us. He had also informed us that our spells would 'level up' with time, practice, and experience. After deeming our magic as passable, he went back into the cockpit while Sora and I remained down to spar and keep practicing.

We both paused as we heard Goofy yell about seeing a world. After dismissing our keyblades, we both began to dash up the stairs to see our destination.

* * *

Departing the gummi ship had actually been simple as we were actually teleported off of the vessel - which was kept in orbit thanks to two chipmunk engineers back at a world known at Disney Castle - and somewhere on the world. I thought it honestly was a smart thing to do, the last thing we needed was our method of transportation stolen by some idiot who saw the ship and boarded it (though Donald and Goofy both claimed that it was to protect the world border [since there was some ancient law about not letting on we were from other worlds]). However, the moment we got off we were falling. Not the sort of falling as though we had tried skydiving, but more like we were on an invisible elevator that was lowering us down. We took a second to spin and orient ourselves but soon managed to get ready to land. All of us landed softly with exception to Goofy who apparently decided he'd try to catch a nap and flipped over right before he hit the floor on his stomach with a wince-worthy thud.

We glanced around and saw a white rabbit in red regal attire, holding a large pocket watch that was running away on two legs yelping, "Oh my fur and whiskers! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!"

We all watch with faint bemusement as he ran - huffing and puffing - off down the corridor while yelling he needed to be 'there and not here' and how 'the queen will have his head for sure'.

"Um…" I began.

Everyone turned to me.

"…I got nothing." I sighed.

Sora rolled his eyes, "Well we should probably follow him, besides, there nowhere else to go."

We all agreed with that and made out way to a door. However upon opening the door we found ourselves in a tiny room. I looked down and saw the rabbit - which was now tiny - run through a door with a doorknob with a face-like design.

"How did he get so small?" Sora asked as he crouched down to inspect the door.

"No, your simply too big." The doorknob replied.

We all jolted back as the doorknob's keyhole moved in the shape of a mouth.

"It talks!" Donald yelped.

The doorknob gave a colossal yawn before complaining, "Must you be so loud? You woke me up."

Goofy replied with a friendly, "Good morning."

The doorknob replied with a crabby, "Good night! I need a bit more sleep!"

"Wait!" Sora pleaded, "How do we grow small?"

The doorknob kept only one eye open and said, "Why don't you try the bottle over there?"

We turned to see a table and chair with two bottles sprout out of the floor. However, while we were moving Goofy accidentally knocked me slightly and I stumbled into the bed, which instead of staying still and allowing me to land on it as per normal beds, slid into the wall with a poof as I landed on the hard marble floor.

"Ack!" I yelped, catching myself on my elbows before my head thunked against the wall, "What the hell?"

Sora turned with the bottle in hand, "You okay?"

"Yeah." I replied, getting to my feet, "But what the heck is up with the bed just sliding into the wall?"

Sora shrugged and swallowed a gulp of the drink, suddenly he began to shrink down until he was as small as the rabbit. We all followed suit and soon were tiny enough to fit through the door.

Unfortunately, that's when we were ambushed by heartless.

Soldier and shadow heartless spawned in swirls of darkness and immediately rushed over to attack us. I backpedaled as I summoned my keyblade, swinging it in a wide arc to drive them back as they converged on me. I rolled under a whirlwind kick and drove my keyblade into the stomach of a shadow. I caught a glimpse of Sora twisting away from a swipe and swiping his keyblade through the faceplate of a soldier heartless while a explosion of fire incinerated another heartless trying to flank him to fading ash. To be honest, it was a huge fight like in Traverse Town, thankfully, there weren't nearly as many heartless to fight and soon we had cleared the room.

I dismissed my keyblade and looked towards where I had fallen, "I think I see where we should go next."

Sora, Donald, and Goofy all turned to the black passage that had been previously covered by the bed that had been pushed aside. With a shrug, we all made our way over to the passage before striding inside. When we emerged we saw the rabbit trot over to a raised stand where he panted before blowing into a bugle and calling out that the court was in session. A young blonde girl in a blue dress looked bewildered as she questioned exactly why she was on trial. I blinked at the lady - who obviously was a queen judging by her attitude and attire - began to rant about how she was sure the poor girls was guilty. If that wasn't unfair enough, the reason of 'because I said so' was just as asinine.

And it pissed me off.

For one thing, I try to be fair. My parents always told me that you have to be fair and just in life, you cannot choose a side because you like it more. I had always taken that to heart, and wanted to be sure I made them proud, which counted doubly so now that they were gone. Including that, finding this stuck up lady to be accusing people - and probably imprisoning them - for her her desires without any sort of check and balance was not right in any functional legal system.

Then again, the world hadn't been blown up or turned into something post apocalyptic so maybe it was okay.

Though in response to that, this world was just plain weird.

Unfortunately the girl seemed to be indignant when accused and called the queen out on her behavior and if anything, that was a bad move with the royal stuck-up types.

"Silence!" The queen bellowed, "You dare defy me?"

"Hey guys," Sora said from behind me, "We should help her out."

"But the rules…" Donald began.

"We're outsiders, so wouldn't that be muddling?" Goofy said.

"Meddling!" Donald corrected.

"Oh yeah," Goofy said somewhat sheepishly, "And that's against the rules."

I whirled to face them, "We can't just sit by! What if she's innocent?"

I was cut off as the queen charged the young girl as guilty.

"For assault and the attempted theft of my heart- " The queen growled.

Sora and I both inhaled sharply, realizing who was the real culprit in a nanosecond.

"- off with her head!" The queen roared.

The card soldiers that had been standing around began to converge on the girl while she pleaded for the queen to stop.

Sora and I both ran forward.

"Hold it right there!" Sora yelled.

"Stop right now!" I yelled, barely restraining myself from summoning my keyblade.

"Who are you?" The queen shouted, "How dare you interfere in my court?"

"Excuse me," Sora said, "But we know who the real culprit is!"

"Yeah," Goofy began, "It's the heart- mupmf!"

He quickly slapped his hands over his mouth before he said too much.

"Anyway," Sora continued before the queen asked, "she's not the one your looking for."

"That's nonsense, have you any proof?" The queen challenged.

'Damn!' I growled in my head, 'We can't tell her about the heartless, but we don't have anyway to prove it was them! If we don't do something, they'll kill the girl!"

Sora faltered as he came to the same conclusion and one of the card guards hauled the girl over to a cage before locking her inside of it.

"Bring me evidence of Alice's innocence, if you fail, it's off with all of your heads!" The queen said imperiously, leaning back in her throne, "Gather as much or as little evidence as you please. Report back here once you are ready."

With that she made a waving motion with her hand as though to shoo us off and glared.

* * *

We first decided to talk to Alice and introduce ourselves, and after apologizing for getting us caught up in this (we assured her we would help her and didn't mind but she seemed inconsolable at her predicament) we tried to see if she knew anything much. Apparently she tumbled down some sort of rabbit hole and got here (once again I decided not to question it, I didn't want a headache) but the guard quickly decided that the defendant wasn't to have much of a say and shooed us away.

With that inquiry leading to a dead end, we headed off into the forest in the hopes we would find something to help clear Alice's name.

When we entered we were all taken aback as what seemed to be the head of a cat appeared before us, grinning madly before fading out. It then appeared higher and lower, until it got on the stump next to us.

My jaw dropped as its body appeared to be balancing on its head. The body stepped off the head before lifting it into air and placing it on its shoulders.

"Who are you?" Donald yelled.

"Who indeed?" The cat replied mischievously, "Poor Alice. Soon to lose her head, and she's not guilty of a thing!"

"Hey if you know the culprit is," Sora demanded, "tell us!"

"Or at least vouch for her innocence!" I implored.

"The Cheshire Cat has all the answers, but doesn't always tell. The answer, the culprit, the cat all lie in darkness."

It began to fade and I yelled, "Wait!"

"They've already left the forest. I won't tell which exit." The disembodied voice of the cat echoed around us, "There are four pieces of evidence in all. Three are a cinch to find. The fourth is tricky. Big reward if you find them all."

"Should we trust him?" Donald asked.

"To trust, or not to trust? I trust you'll decide!" He quipped as faded back in for another moment.

With that he faded out, his laughing echoing around us before fading into silence.

"The longer I stay here," I murmured, "The more I'm beginning to think I might go insane here…"

Suddenly heartless began to spawn around us and we quickly began to attack.

* * *

Going through the forest, we found footprints of some heartless in a pink box - which was right behind a wall of grass - and antenna which was on a platform deeper into the forest. Jumping up to gather it wasn't hard so we began to scour the forest for more boxes, we found some flowers that asked for more portions and ethers and gave better items in return. We began jumping up to higher levels of the forest using the lily pads and entered a passage we found in the tree that was in the middle of the forest. However going through that only resulted in us falling onto the stove of the room where the doorknob was - evidenced by the fact we could see it and hear it snoring loudly. But despite that painful landing (nowhere near as soft as when we first arrived), there was a box containing the stench of the heartless as evidence. I gagged and almost threw up but quelled the urge to burn the evidence - it smelled like rotting food and decaying flesh - since we needed it to clear Alice's name. We went back to the forest, only to hear a flower tell us to give it a potion to help us. Shrugging, I poured it on the roots of the flower, which then sighed in pleasure. It suddenly glowed and I felt myself increase in size until I was almost as tall as the tree. I stumbled back in surprise and stepped on the stump where the cat had been only for it to lower like a weight switch under my foot and raise up a lily pad with a cheery 'see ya'. I looked around and saw Sora, Donald, and Goofy all shouting at me from below.

"Niji!" Sora shouted, pointing at the tree in the middle of the forest, "The flower said that fruit on the tree can shrink you back down to normal!"

I nodded and grabbed the branch to help me get the fruit, but the tree pivoted - groaning and grumbling might I add - and I nearly fell (Again? God, what is up with this place?) as the branch twisted and dropped the fruit. I sighed in annoyance and picked up the fruit before biting into it. It was actually quite tasty - juicy and flavorful - and I felt myself shrink down to normal size. After finally traversing the new path and getting to another passage, we found ourselves precariously standing on the knob to a faucet. The last piece of evidence to clear Alice's name was on a wooden ledge a few feet away from us and the ledge was big enough to hold all of us.

"…So that's what he meant by tricky…" I growled, cursing the cat in my head.

I gauged the distance and realized that if we fell from here, it would hurt as bad as falling on the stove top.

At least we'd live despite the painful landing.

Sora had reached the same conclusion judging by how his face twisted into a grimace, "So we have to get the evidence.

I sighed in resignation, "Hang on."

I carefully took a sprinting pose and dashed at it before leaping at the wooden ledge from very edge of the faucet. I manage to land on it and carefully picked up the box Inside which there were claw markings.

"Got it!" I crowed, "Come on, you all can make the jump!"

Sora sighed and took a running start before leapt off the faucet to the wooden ledge; both Donald and Goofy followed suit as we all looked over the edge.

No sooner had Sora landed when a chuckle echoed through the area and The Cheshire Cat appeared, laying leisurely on the faucet where we had just been.

"Well, look at what you've found. Nice going." He said cheerily.

"Now we can save Alice." Sora said, sighing in relief.

"Don't be too sure!" The cat cautioned happily, "Alice may be innocent, but what about you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, frowning.

"I won't tell." The cat replied, "But I'll give you something."

Two orbs of blue light formed in front of him and flew out into Sora's and my chests. I instantly shivered as I felt as though someone dunked my in an icy cold river. I collapsed onto my side and I curled up, trying to warm myself up my locking whatever warmth I could inside. Sora didn't fare any better, he stumbled back and landed on his butt, arms instantly moving to rub at the exposed parts of his arms, trying to chase the chill away. But almost as soon as the cold swept through us, it began to fade.

"The power of ice." The Cheshire Cat said, "You can now draw out the chill of ice magic!"

With that, he faded out of existence and vanished.

I shivered one last time and got to my feet, "Guh… You okay Sora?"

He gave me a thumbs up as he shook his head as though to clear of brain freeze.

"We need to get down somehow…" Donald said.

"We could jump." Goofy said.

"Not like we have any better option available…" I sighed.

Turns out I was wrong about the jump, once again we floated down before landing lightly on the floor.

I wasn't complaining.

* * *

 **Next up: The Trial!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Welp, began replaying kh 1.5 to get the kick back!**

 **Been a while since then though.. *shrug***

 **Hopefully that helps my story!**

 **Credit to respective owners, etc.**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I hummed cheerfully as we got back to the courtroom and the queen glared expectantly at us. I began to lay the boxes of evidence down on the floor between the stand and the Queen's throne and smirked up at her, amusement clear. We had exactly what we needed in order to prove her wrong, and the anticipation of seeing her face was almost too good for my imagination.

"Your highness, we have managed to gather all the evidence we could in order to help prove Alice's innocence." I said haughtily, my look all but screaming we had her beat.

The highness sniffed at the boxes, "That's alot of evidence, but I'm still not impressed. Guards! Bring forth my evidence!"

A single box was placed next the four boxes and suddenly they all jumped into the air. They slammed into each other and all became one single box before bouncing away from each other into the five separate boxes once again.

"What the hell?" I growled, an idea of what was about to happen already beginning to take form in my mind.

I just like to reiterate my general bafflement at the lack of justice and due process.

"Since checking all the boxes would just waste time, "The queen said haughtily, "Choose one, I'll base my decision on that alone."

"After all the trouble of gathering it?" Sora yelled, dismayed.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I complained, "How the world is that even fair?"

I managed to clamp my mouth shut before I went on a tirade of just how unfair she was being, acting more like a brat than a queen. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling that wouldn't help our cause much.

"You dare object?! If you do, it's off with your head!" She roared.

'I swear to god this is freaking ridiculous, what is with this place?' I lamented mentally.

"So how do we pick the box?" Sora grumbled.

I closed my eyes and exhaled crossing my arms, "I don't know…"

I tried to think of which box to pick - my attention shifting to the five boxes - so we could make sure we had the one to save Alice. Suddenly, as though I was jolted by static electricity, a feeling rippled against the edge of my thoughts. I looked at the boxes and closed my eyes trying to clear through the unfairness and anger at the queen swirling in my head. There was a slight essence that was emanating from the boxes, it was murky and hard to pinpoint, but definitely there.

Like the faintest whisper of wind against my skin.

"Sora!" I hissed, "I think some of the boxes are radiating the feeling from the heartless! Maybe we can sense which boxes are the right one!"

Sora nodded and hopped from the stand down to the boxes and closed his eyes, his hands held out as he reached out towards the boxes. He smiled after a minute of walking past the boxes and confidently picked up the one in the middle.

"This is the box of evidence we choose!" He said loudly.

"Are you sure?" The guard asked.

Sora nodded and set the box down.

"Now," The queen said confidently, she was sure she would get her verdict, one way or another, "We shall see who the true culprit is!"

The box was opened and a image of a soldier heartless appeared for a moment, twitching and clanking in a jerky manner before it faded away. I pumped my fist in victory as Donald and Goofy cheered.

"What in the world was that?" The queen demanded.

"The proof of what we have been trying to tell you all along!" I called proudly.

"Alice is innocent!" Sora followed enthusiastically.

Everyone could hear Alice sigh in relief.

I smirked at the queen triumphantly - ready to see her slump in defeat and humiliation - but immediately was surprised by the venomous scowl on her face, her face slowly turning red in fury.

"Silence!" She roared in anger, "I am the law here! Article 29: Anyone who defies the queen is guilty!"

My jaw dropped and Sora stared.

I was half-convinced that there wasn't even an 'Article 29' and she simply made it up because she was too proud and hated it if she was wrong.

If we weren't guilty from one thing, she would find us guilty of another charge.

Donald roared, "That's crazy!"

The stand where the rabbit had stood melted into the ground as well as the stand where I stood, even the seats that Goofy and Donald had been in sank into the ground in a poof of smoke. A curtain swished around Alice's cage and blocked her from view as a tower with three levers rose from the floor. A card soldier rushed over and began to yank the lever down, raising Alice's cage so that she couldn't get down even if she managed to move the curtain and open the cage.

The queen raised her heart-shaped mallet, "Don't let them get to the tower; if they do, it's off with your heads!"

The cards leapt into the air and descended on top of us. Sora and I dived away from the landing cards and I rolled closer the the Queen who glared at me. We rose in tandem, keyblades materializing in our hands and ready to fight.

I pointed my keyblade at her snarled, "I am going to enjoy this WAY too much! FIRE!"

A sphere of flame erupted from my keyblade and though the queen raised her heart-shaped mallet to block, it struck her and exploded with enough force to send her sprawling onto her back. Sora and I moved in sync, dashing at the tower while Donald and Goofy began to attack the guards that surrounded them. We tried to make our way to the tower but the card soldiers kept forcing away after landing a single blow on the tower. We wouldn't be able to break if the cards just kept getting to their feet like this!

I blocked a thrusted lance and grunted as I stumbled back next to Sora, "This isn't working!" I growled, "We'll be overwhelmed if we don't find out how to keep them off of us!"

"If we could just make them stop moving for just a moment..." Sora grumbled.

I thought of our new spell and grinned, "Maybe not stop them, but how about freeze them in their tracks?"

Sora blinked and a matching grin spread over his face.

We pointed our keyblades and pointed them at the feet of the advancing card soldiers.

"DEEP FREEZE!" We shouted in unison.

Bolts of white, snowflake-shaped energy shot out of our keyblades, exploding into the soldiers and freezing a good three-fourths of them where they stood. It took a few more castings to stop all of them, but we managed.

I frowned as I panted... I felt drained. I felt as though I had been exercising rather heavily and my limbs weren't responding too well, except that feeling was less physical and more ethereal/mental than anything else. I blinked as I realized that it was my magic beginning to run thin from overuse, which actually made a lot of sense now that I had a moment to actually think on it. In every instance of magic use before, we had used it more sparingly in our fights, usually to hit enemies that were out of range while keeping our keyblade in hand, Sora and I had been casting magic pretty heavily just now and the sudden strain had taken a pretty hefty toll - inexperienced as we were - since our reserves of magic probably weren't very high. Throwing our keyblade didn't require any magic but it left us without a weapon so we didn't want to use it unless we needed a stronger hit than our magic could muster. Until now, I hadn't considered the fact that here was a limit to how much magic I could use before I ran out completely.

I exchanged a glance with Sora who also looked like he had also strained his reserves of magic, judging by the sweat beading on his forehead.

While we made short work the the remaining soldiers, the trapped cards yelled and tugged at their legs but were stuck fast as they tried to reach us. Sora and I darted around the guards and began to beat the tower with our keyblades; with the now unimpeded assault, the wheels of the tower were quick to splinter and shatter, leaving the tower exposed. The ice that had encased the card soldiers was beginning to creak and crack, but before they could escape, the cards were suddenly struck down by a bolt of lighting. Donald and Goofy had dealt with their soldiers and were now moving to cover our backs, knocking the soldiers over with magic and might.

"Take this!" Sora roared as he swung his keyblade in a powerful downward stroke.

The tower last few brick crumbled under the force and finally collapsed. There was a sound of a chain rattling as the cage that had been hoisted into the air slid back down to the ground. Sora ran over and skidded to a stop in front of the curtain-covered cage which swung open to reveal absolutely nothing.

The cage was empty.

"What?!" I yelled, "She's gone!"

"She must have been kidnapped while we fighting!" Sora realized.

"You fools!" The Queen roared, slamming her fist down on her podium with enough force that the podium cracked, "Find her at once! I don't care how!"

The cards began to scramble about in a mad panic around the courtroom.

* * *

We beat a hasty escape before the queen could attempt to turn her ire on us once again. None of us wanted a repeat of the queen being a colossal brat trying to imprison us. Stepping into the forest I noticed a bud blossom into a red flower.

I yelped as the flower promptly spat out a boulder which I dived to the side to avoid as it would have killed me if it hit me.

The cat reappeared onto of the boulder, grinning.

Sora helped me to my feet before he walked over the feline, "Have you seen Alice?"

"Alice, no." He replied, "Shadows, yes!"

"Where did they go?" Goofy asked.

"This way? That way?" He murmured, "Does it matter? Left, right, up, down! All mixed up thanks to the shadows! Step deeper into the forest to the deserted garden. You might find shadows in the upside-down room!"

With that long spiel, he vanished.

I stepped closed to the boulder, patting its rocky surface, "Guys... I think this rock was on the other end of the forest... Maybe we should go to see if it was blocking off something."

With that in mind, we began to make our way through the forest, at least until a few heartless swirled into existence.

And one was a very large, very fat heartless.

"What the hell is that?" I yelled, leaping back as a shadow launched itself at me, "That looks like a soldier heartless that became morbidly obese and didn't care to stop eating!"

Jiminy popped his head out of one of Sora's pockets, "I believe it's called a 'large body'!"

I rolled my eyes as I ducked a swipe from a shadow, well, at least the name was accurate.

"Thank you, but I was hoping for more of a how to kill it!" I replied as I bashed the head of a soldier heartless that was trying to blindside Goofy.

"Aim behind it! It's stomach repels all physical damage! If you have to hit the front, use magic!" Jiminy yelled.

I decided to keep that in mind when I saw it pull itself back as though it was about to launch itself towards us.

And launch it did.

It threw itself - stomach first - at all of us. We scattered as it landed right where we had been with enough force to cause the ground to shake. It seemed to make no move to get up and I capitalized on its current predicament; with a war cry, I dashed over to it and began slashing at its back. Right when I thought it wasn't going to cause too much trouble, however, in a flash it was on its feet and swinging it's arms around, forcing me to back away or risk being nailed by a flailing haymaker. Shadowy wisps of energy rose like steam from its body and its eyes locked on me as it stared/glared.

"Aw peanuts." I mumbled.

It slapped it stomach and then ran at me with the speed of a... waddling sort of sprint.

Though it wasn't a particularly stupid heartless to be fair (were heartless even capable of a high-level of strategic though?), I recognized exactly what it was trying to do. If its stomach was its most armored part, magic may have been able to punch holes in it, but against a physical attack like they keyblade or something like that, there was no need to fear a reprisal.

So running at me stomach first was a good idea, after all it hadn't seen me use anything other than my keyblade.

Unfortunately for the heartless, my keyblade wasn't my only weapon.

I pointed my keyblade at it and yelled, "Fire!"

A ball of fire erupted from my keyblade and exploded as it made contact with its stomach. It trembled for a moment as it toppled over from the explosion before evaporating and releasing the heart it held. I grunted in mild discomfort as my magic reserves twinged slightly as they hadn't fully recovered from the over-expenditure at the courtroom. Just then a shadow crashed onto its back in front of me and twitched feebly until it evaporated into nothingness.

Sora strode over to me and patted my shoulder, "You good?"

"I think I am going to fall back on throwing my keyblade for a bit." I replied, absently rolling my shoulder as if to clear it of the drained feeling, "My magic still hasn't recovered from all that casting..."

"We should probably give out throwing keyblade attack a name." Sora said, grinning with a trace of mischief tinging his expression, "I mean art first it was kind our only long-range attack, but it's definitely getting stronger."

I thought back to our clash with the guard armor, and my keyblade glowing as it spun, "How about... Strike Raid?"

Sora thought about it for a second, "That's an awesome name!"

I chuckled, "Alright, that will now be named Strike Raid forevermore."

As we grinned, a small part of me wondered how in the hell I was coping with everything that has happened and how I haven't lost my mind to this change from the almost instant shift from normalcy to a world of heart-stealing monsters, legendary weapons, and an entire universe that - had I been normal and never chosen by the keyblade to be its wielder - existed beyond the borders of my world.

The larger part of me just shushed it and pushed me to carry on.

So carry on I did.


	7. Chapter 7

**Reviews are appreciated and...**

 **What was it?**

 **Ah yes!**

 **All credit to respective owners!**

 **Oh and small note,** **Niji** **'s** **battle stance is Eraqus' and no it's not because they share some sort of nebulous connection (Kh is convoluted enough WITHOUT trying to work that in), it simply seems to be a stance that** **Niji** **would use.**

 **Also, note at the bottom if your a bit confused about the end of this chapter.**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

Arriving in the room that was the ceiling of the room of the doorknob wasn't really as jarring as it probably should've been. The tea party room had already been surreal, and - much to my exasperated dismay - I was getting used to this place, unwilling as it was. Sitting in the chairs either summoned heartless or showered us in potion and ethers depending on what seats we sat in. The heartless spawned what looked like red lanterns that spat out fireballs. Luckily, Donald had told us that all heartless of a certain element were weak against their opposing nature; he demonstrated the point by instantly destroying three of them with a single blizzard spell. With that in mind I decided to gulp down an ether, figuring that 1: I could splurge since we had a bit of a surplus on our hands (not to mention when we stopped by traverse town, I was going to stock up on better equipment and get some accessories to help my attributes [thank god these things dropped munny]), 2: I couldn't afford to be low on magic if we had magic specific enemies to fight, and 3: I wasn't regaining my magic nearly fast enough naturally.

We barely got into the room when we heard a familiar voice, "They're hiding somewhere. And the momeraths outgrabe. Want to find the shadows? Try turning on the lights."

And with that the cat once again faded into nonexistence.

"And the momeraths outgrabe? What the heck does that even mean?" I mumbled.

We rounded the corner where he was standing only to see soldier heartless and shadows waiting for us.

We immediately began to fight out way through the wave as the heartless converged on us. I ran up one of the slope heading up (or what it down? all of the regular laws of physics seemed to have no meaning in this place...) and jumped off the edge to the side, aiming my keyblade behind me.

"Fire!" I roared.

A gout of flame erupted from my keyblade and caught the shadows chasing me in the ensuing explosion. I landed in a crouch and ducked away as I saw a ball of fire racing towards me. As I deflected a blast of fire back at its caster, I noticed Sora and Donald currently focusing on the large body that was swinging its meaty fists at them. Goofy was focusing on blocking their flank from the red nocturne's attacks. I ran at the red heartless - a icy blue light forming at the tip of my keyblade and already steaming from contact with the air - and swung my keyblade with a shout. As the heartless weren't expecting the attack they weren't able to move out of the way and five evaporated as the ice bolts struck them. Unfortunately, the remaining heartless realized I was there and began to fire balls of flame at me as I reset my stance. I batted away the flames and back-stepped away, trying to give myself more room to move.

Suddenly Sora was at them, hacking at the heartless and knocking them to the floor with quick swipes of his keyblade while Donald blasted them back. Soon, the heartless were all defeated and we stood alone.

"Okay..." I muttered, cracking my neck, "So he said we needed to turn on the lights, right?"

Goofy looked around, "How do we do that?"

Donald and Sora both looked around the room before Donald pointed at the raised structures, "Hey, aren't these chandeliers off at the moment?"

I looked up and hopped up onto the the upside-down chandeliers; after I inspected it, they looked to me like ornate candlesticks. I saw that there was a blackened strand of string that probably would light and I nodded to myself. I lightly tapped the glass with my keyblade, seeing if there were any traps (because I figured if this was the first world and things were already this weird, I'd best be prepared). I stumbled back as the candle burst into flame, casting a faint glow.

We hear the sound of a slight chuckle, and the Cheshire Cat was laying leisurely on the next unlit chandelier light, "It's too dim, make it brighter."

"What next?" Donald queried.

"One more lamp you need to light." The Cheshire Cat replied.

With that the cat once again faded.

Sora hopped onto the other chandelier and tapped it with his keyblade. The fire lit and for a moment it gleamed brighter than a normal fire before fading into a more natural glow.

There was sound of the Chesire Cat who was suddenly laying down in front of me, "All the lights are lit, you'll see the shadows soon. They'll arise in this room, but somewhere else. They might go after the doorknob too!"

He vanished.

I looked up (or rather down?) and turned to Sora, "We need to get back to the doorknob's floor."

We hopped off the chandeliers and more heartless spawned, we cut them into oblivion before we made our way through the forest, cleaving our way through the waves of heartless that tried to stop us. We carefully skirted the queen's court as we didn't want to deal with her and took a moment to down a potion and ether each to ready ourselves. If the cat was telling the truth (and while he technically hadn't lied to us, he was constantly misleading us and generally giving us the run around) we probably would need to be prepared to fight some heartless, and probably of a tougher variety. We made our way to the doorknob's floor only to hear the sound of the cat's materialization; he was perched on the edge of the table and looking down at us.

"You'll have a better view from higher up." He called out to us.

We quickly hopped onto the table top and approached him.

"The shadows will be her soon." He warned, grinning and pointing up, "Are you prepared for the worst? If not, too bad!"

We all looked up to see some multi-colored thing drop to the floor from the ceiling and we all leapt back, falling into our stances as it sprung from where it landed over the the table and onto its legs. Black, paper-like arms unfolded as the it straightened, heads - cylindrical and stacked one on top of the others - connected to a tiny torso. It reminded me of a spider with the it's four long and spindly legs connected to what seemed yellow feet that curved like crescents. It conjured two feather dusters - of all the weapons it could have formed - and began to juggle them around as it began to rock on it's feet.

We wasted no time in seizing the initiative and ran at it. Sora lunged straight at its midsection, his keyblade stabbing into it with a loud crack. As it bent slightly over the force of his blow, I leapt onto the armrest of the chair next to the table and launched myself off of it to hit it over the head with Starlight; the heartless wobbled and fell to its knees, momentarily stunned. Goofy and Donald moved in tandem, Donald fired a blizzard spell that exploded into bursts of icy light and Goofy ducked lower before smashing his shield up into the heartless' many faces. It staggered back but quickly recovered and began to swipe at us with the feather dusters, knocking us back and sending us tumbling back.

I let out a pained grunt as I hit the floor, rolling to the side just as a massive feather duster slammed down where I had been. Donald and Goofy both scrambled at its feet, distracting it as they attacked. Its lower body and the parts we could easily hit like the legs and knees were too heavily armored and deflected our weapons like hitting rocks against a wall, they simply bounced off. Sora jumped against the chair's back and pushed himself off to land a heavy blow to the heartless' torso. I spun my keyblade in my hand and pointed it at the heartless, pulling more of my magic from my core.

"Fire! Fire! FIRE!" I roared.

Three balls of fire homed in on the torso and exploded in quick succession. The heartless slumped to its knees, twitching. We all ran in on the heartless to attack and only got a few blows in before it twitched and swung its feather dusters out in a wide swipe, knocking us all away. Me and Sora clambered to our feet and both began to dart around as the giant heartless tired to flatten us with its weapons. Donald used a fire spell but to my utter dismay, it blocked the spell with its feather duster.

Which promptly burst into flame.

"Maybe I'm wrong," I yelled in dismay as I ducked away from another swipe, "But aren't feather dusters soft and not supposed to be used to crush people or light them on fire?"

"Not if they are the size of a bus and are being used by a heartless that is trying to kill us!" Sora yelled back, "Fire!"

A ball of fire rocketed from his keyblade and slammed into the heartless' chest, making it flinch. I ran forward and leapt onto the chair and then leapt into the air and pointed my keyblade in its face while in mid-air.

"Deep freeze!" I shouted.

A explosion of frost threw me onto the tabletop on my back and made the heartless stumble back again. It seemed to bristle in irritation and stalked over to the table, raising both feather dusters. I scrambled away and jumped off the tabletop to the floor below. I meant to use the table as a sort of barrier between the heartless and me, but it literally smashed the table back into the floor. I blinked and saw it swipe at me as it moved towards the brick chimney, its flaming duster now extinguished and trailing smoke. I rolled out of the way of one and raised my keyblade to block another. It was only mildly effective as I was still sent sliding away before I stabbed my keyblade into the ground to slow my momentum to a stop. It suddenly faced away from us and placed its feather dusters on the brick countertop, which exploded into flame.

It was now wielding flaming batons again.

I groaned, "As if those didn't seem like enough of a problem with just one on fire."

Suddenly the table burst out of the ground again in a poof of smoke and I jumped away in shock. Just as well as a huge ball of fire crashed down where I was standing. Sora flung his keyblade at the heartless and caught its attention, only for the creature to be hit from behind by Donald and Goofy. It wailed in fury and spun its flaming batons, launching waves of fire at us. Eyes wide we began to scrmable about to dodge he rain of literal fire. Goofy hunkered down under his shield and Donald scrambled while firing stronger ice spells to counter the flames. I ran around the table, rolling behind its leg to avoid another fireball. A moment later, Sora, Donald, and Goofy were pressed against chair's legs, trying to wait out the storm. Sora winced as the a blast hit the other side of the chair he was behind, he held his hand open and in a flash of light his keyblade materialized in his hand.

"We have to get in close!" I called, "If we stay here it'll just smash the table and chair back into the floor when it gets tired of us hiding!"

"How to we do that?" Sora yelled back.

That was a good question, I didn't want to try to chance my ability to bat the flames away. These blasts were much, much stronger than the red nocturnes' fireballs we had faced so far, if I wasn't strong enough to knock it back, the flames would engulf me. We had only just begun to use ice spells, they weren't strong enough to cancel out the flames like Donald could.

I blinked.

Maybe they didn't have to be...

I closed my eyes and took a moment to feel out my reserves of magic.

Still good.

"Watch me!" I yelled, "I have an idea!"

I took a deep breath and ran out from behind the table and directly at the heartless. It saw me and focused on my and fire a gout of flame. I narrowed my eyes and brought my keyblade up as though I was going to stab at the air, aiming for the center of the approaching sphere fire.

I stabbed my keyblade through the air right at the approaching fireball it and yelled, "Deep freeze!"

The ball of fire came into contact with the tip of my keyblade just as I fired my spell. The frost bolts were almost completely overpowered by the stronger flame, but I didn't intend to cancel it out or overpower it with magic. The fire washed around me as the frost weakened and spread the attack around me so that rather than hit me head on, the fire and sparkles of fading frost dispersed and washed around my keyblade in a circle which left me unharmed except for the wave of heat that washed over me. I nearly fell back but pushed forward, managing to keep my footing and smirked at the heartless.

"Use ice magic to weaken the fire!" I shouted as I spun to the side away from another blast, "If you time it right you can charge through his fireballs!"

Sora nodded, Goody raised his shield, and Donald readied his staff as they all ran out from their positions. I rolled back from another blast fo fire and jabbed my keyblade to shoot off another blizzard at an oncoming fireball. I growled as the blast scored a glancing scorch along my side. I shifted back and away and gingerly felt my side. I raised my keyblade as the heartless advanced on me and began trying to crush me.

"Ow..." I grumbled, twisting out of the way of a flaming baton, "I'm getting cocky. I did it once and got carless."

I bit down on a scream of pain as I blocked a flaming baton with my keyblade. As if the heat wasn't enough of a punishment, the force of the attack was strong enough to press my keyblade against the arm curled around my midsection, thus pressing on the burn. Donald saw me gripping my side as I clumsily darted around the heartless and waved his wand at me, healing my burn and allowing me more mobility. I nodded my thanks at him while Sora moved in and fired several balls of fire in quick succession, stunning the heartless. I rushed in and brought my keyblade down on the heartless' bent head with a roar of 'fire!'

My keyblade smashed into it with enough force to knock a large body on its front and was further powered by the fire spell that detonated on impact. I pushed against the force of the explosion and kept bashing the heartless. Donald raised his staff and called down thunder while Goofy and Sora both began to beat the heartless with punishing blows. In the middle of our combined assault, It stood abruptly and staggered backwards before collapsing back into its stunned position, it shivered and twitched as it struggled to rise. It suddenly stood straight up and collapsed onto its back and began to dissolve.

We all let out a collective sigh of relief, if all the strongest heartless were going to be like this...

Suddenly there was a loud yawn, and we all turned to see the doorknob complaining, "What a racket. How's a doorknob supposed to get any sleep?"

It let out another colossal yawn, and suddenly light began to pour out of a hole shaped like a stereotypical keyhole. We all stared at the hole when suddenly Sora keyblade trembled in his grasp and light gathered around its tip. It wrenched Sora's hand to hold it out to ward the light and fired a beam of light straight into it; there was a loud locking sound and the light vanished.

"What was that?" Donald squawked.

"It sounded like something locking." I noted.

To my surprise, a gummi piece fell out of the doorknob's mouth and onto the floor.

"This gummi ain't like the others. No sir." Goofy said as he crouched down to look at the gummi.

"I'll hold onto it then." Donald replied, picking up the piece and putting it in his pocket.

There was a sound of materialization and we saw the cat standing on the tabletop.

"Splendid," He complimented, "You're quite the heroes. If you're looking for Alice, she's not here."

We all felt a foreboding feeling rise in the room.

"She's gone! Off with the shadows, into darkness." He said somberly before vanishing.

"No..." Sora groaned in undisguised anguish.

"Damn it!" I growled, flinging my keyblade to the floor to try to vent some of my self-directed anger, "We couldn't protect her!"

Donald quickly spoke to try to console us, "Let's get back to our gummi ship, we might find her in another world."

Sora and I perked up at that, we had a chance to set things right, and that was what was important. With that in mind we began to walk towards the door when I noticed a object glinting where the heartless had fallen. It was a small brown horn that was a part of a necklace. I picked it up and held it up, feeling a strange sort of energy pulsing from it.

"What's this?" I wondered aloud.

"I may be able to help you with that question." Jiminy Cricket called form Sora's pocket, "I don't exactly know what that item itself is, but I do think I have a good idea. Some stronger heartless and even some stronger beings in the worlds leave behind small trinkets when they are beaten. They may not seem like much at first glance, but they actually help make people stronger by improving their defenses or attacks and such. In fact, I heard that Traverse Town has a group of Moogles working there, and that they are master crafters, making trinkets just like this. Why I heard they even made a keychain compatible with keyblades to make it stronger with the correct materials and can strengthen existing keychains if given the right stuff!"

Sora and I both immediately traded glances, a stronger keyblade? Sign us up!

"Could we talk to them?" I asked eagerly.

Jiminy sighed, "You could if they were working, but currently, their shop is being repaired. Back when you were in Traverse Town, they got hit pretty hard from the heartless despite being in the first district, so they had to close shop to fix up their shop before they could make anything at the moment."

Sora and I both frowned at that.

"Don't worry!" Goofy said, "If Jiminy is right, they should be fixed up in no time! Then we can see what they can make for us."

Sora and I smiled at him.

"Yeah!" I said, clenching a fist, "You're right! Besides, I know we can still get way stronger, we only just got started."

Sora nodded, "Right we'll swing by and see what we can get and if they aren't open yet, we can come by another time."

"In any case, we should get moving." Donald cut in.

"Right." I agreed, "We can worry about stronger keyblades after we save the worlds."

* * *

We all climbed into the gummy ship and I decided I wanted to take some time to meditate and maybe get some sleep before anything else. With that in mind I went down to the training room and summoned my keyblade, looking it over before placing it on my lap before I crossed my legs and closing my eyes. I without any warning suddenly felt as though I was plummeting and I yelled only to find myself landing on a invisible platform. I got up to my feet and looked around at the dark abyss, I had only felt this once before...

The floor lit up with stained glass, but instead of the picture of Sora, Donald, and Goofy in front of the castle, it was a stained glass image of my standing straight with my eyes closed and holding Starlight plunged into the ground at my feet like I had seen in carving of knights. Streaks light were erupting from behind me. Three pillars of light crashed into the platform around me and shielded my eyes from the bright glow.

" _Your power is awakened..._ " The same ancient voice echoed, " _You've shown your potential, but now you must determine your path..._ "

* * *

 **Been waiting a while to get to here! I actually mentioned that** **Niji's** **'Dive to the Heart' was different, and this was why. Much like how in Kingdom Hearts, Sora went through mutliple stations of awakening (I believe that is what they are called)** **Niji** **has to as well. In this AU, he was granted his keyblade, but he had never made any decisions that would influence his progress. It actually wasn't an oversight, I wanted** **Niji** **to get a feel for Starlight before he finished his dive and got a new keyblade for his own. His choices are actually going to be a bit different, so I hope you don't mind.**


	8. Chapter 8

**All credit to respective owners!**

 **Reviews are loved! (Though please only give constructive criticism)**

 **A bit conflicted on posting this chapter to be honest (plus the Keyblade I chose just looked cool and seemed to be the one that fell into the plans I created for this story soo...) Hope it's well recieved!**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I saw that in the pillars of light were weapons I recognized almost immediately.

Keyblades.

' _You have the power but your path is yet to be set, you taken the first step, now you must choose where you wish to go..._ ' The voice commanded, " _Each of these keys represent a ideal and belief that will be taken. You must decide which path you would want to accept, and which path you choose to deny._ "

The one in front of me was actually Sora's keyblade which looked like a classic skeleton key with a long silver Keychain extending from the hilt, and three circles as the symbol for the keychain. The blade was a sterling silver, the rainguard was blue, and the guard was bright gold. The edge top formed the outline of a crown which reminded me of the crown charm Sora was always wearing around his neck. Then the one to my left had the main body that was shaped like a black bat-demonic wing and had an angel wing jutting out at a ninety degree angle; the keyblade's guard was composed of one angelic wing and one demonic wing. Its keychain had a heart shaped emblem that was pure black. Finally the keyblade to my right had a round and curvaceous look to the point of seeming like it couldn't hurt if it hit you. One side of the hilt was formed in the shape that reminded me of an ocean wave, while the other was formed into a beige vine of sand that wrapped around the shaft, which was colored like a sunset. The vine connected to a bouquet of colorful flowers, which entwined to outline a heart. A red silken keychain connected the hilt to a charm exactly like the papou fruit from the island.

I reached out and picked up Sora's keyblade, feeling its weight in my hand and giving it a few practice swings.

' _The Kingdom Key, the key of one whose heart dictates their path and never hesitates to do what they feel is right. Though one may not have meant to be the wielder of the keyblade, the key will always find itself in whoever is most deserving to wield it. A weapon meant to go to those who are ready to protect all that they hold dear. A path for those who will always follow their heart. A key to those who stand by their beliefs. The path of the stalwart guardian..._ ' The voice murmured.

I gently let go of the keyblade, nodding to myself. It was a good choice, though I was a bit confused on the not meant to a wielder. How did that even work? As far as Leon explained, the keyblade chose it wielder, otherwise it would simply reappear in the wielder's hand. He demonstrated this both with Starlight and The Kingdom Key. As for what it embodied, that was definitely on point when it came to me. I never did anything I didn't believe in, and no matter who it was asking. My beliefs were too important for me to ever compromise for, ever. Although, it wasn't the same as refining your beliefs if I was given information that made a irrevocable argument that I was wrong. As much as it did sound like a good choice however - if this was a test to determine who I was - I couldn't be rash. I needed to consider every option I was presented. I walked over to the right of where I had stood before. I picked up the flowery keyblade and spun it in my hand, swiping at the air.

' _Destiny's Embrace, a keyblade granted to those who care for whoever they love and chase whatever they've lost. It may take time for the keyblade to allow itself to be wielded, but guarantees its wielder its utter loyalty. A weapon that will lead one to what they are seeking. It is a path that follows its desires and ensures that though one may lose something, one will always be able to find it once again. A key for those who want to find what's theirs. The path of the devoted explorer..._ ' The voice murmured once again.

I let go of the keyblade and hummed to myself, those were great points, really they were, but they weren't exactly points that matched my personality. I had never really been one to felt like I had to care for others. Not because I didn't want to, but because they were always able to take care of themselves or rejected my offer, I would never hesitate to offer help but I was never much of a caretaker in and of the act itself. As for chasing what I was seeking, I never really knew what I wanted out of life; it just seemed to be way bigger than I could even begin to comprehend and that was before the whole keyblade fiasco. I couldn't see myself wanting much more than to see where life took me rather than try to control it. With that in mind, I went over to the last keyblade and picked it up, and swung at an imaginary foe.

' _The Way to the Dawn, a keyblade for those who are granted a chance to redeem themselves and wish for a second chance. While one may have made mistakes with good intentions in the past, they will always be ready to atone for any of their transgressions. They travel the path that balances on the precipice of light and dark, flitting between daybreak and nightfall. A weapon to help one on the path of redemption and let them prove themselves. A path that will lead one to a place to stand at the side of their friends and fight for them. A key to those who will ultimately be there for who they care for, no matter what it may do to them. The path of the determined redeemer..._ ' The voice finished.

I tilted my head at the keyblade and let go of it. That actually sounded really good. I always believed in making up for your mistakes, even if it was hard. You had to know that you tried to make up for your mistakes, and not shirk responsibility. As my parents always reminded me, nothing good ever came easy, and in the case of making up for your mistakes, that was all the more true. When I made a mistake or did something I sooner or later found out was a bad decision, I alway tried to fix it to the best of my ability. It was hard sometimes, and very hard other times, but I never once considered it to be a waste of my time. I definitely could get behind this idea and apply it to myself. I turned and walked back to the center of the keyblades, thinking. I was really only considering two of the keyblades to choose. 'Way to the Dawn' and 'The Kingdom Keyblade', no disrespect to 'Destiny's Embrace', but it just didn't fit me.

"So which ideal is more important to me?" I mused, "Second chances? Or following what I believe?"

I closed my eyes, and made up my mind. I walked over Way to the Dawn and firmly grasped the handle, "I know following what I believe is important... But I know I can make mistakes if I blindly try to do what I feel is right, what I feel may be right may not necessarily be what is best. I want to know that I have a chance to do the right thing and make up for wrongs I may have done. I choose the Way to the Dawn."

The Keyblade glowed brightly before it vanished from my hand in a burst of light and shadow.

' _Which path do you wish to give up?_ ' The voice murmured.

I turned to the remaining two keyblades and walked over to Destiny's Embrace. As much as I didn't want to sacrifice a choice, I knew that it was practically a rule.

I looked at it and bowed my head in regret as I picked it up, "I'm sorry. I give up Destiny's Embrace."

' _So you wish to follow the path of the determined redeemer and deny the path of the devoted explorer?_ ' The voice queried.

I nodded, "Yes."

The Kingdom Key suddenly zoomed in front of me and hung in the air innocently.

I waited for a couple of seconds to see if anything would occur but as nothing happened I reached and reached for the keyblade. The Kingdom Key began to glow - almost blinding me - and it shattered into light before I could close my hand on the hilt. Wisps of sparks and light drifted towards me and although I raised my hands to try to defend myself, the wisps of power swirled around me like a storm and I felt a slight twinge in my chest.

The floor beneath me dimmed and brightened in random pulses as the energy sank into the stained glass floor.

' _A strong heart is necessary. To walk any path, you must be able to resist drifting onto the others as much as possible, though there is sometimes gain in finding a middle-ground. This can also be said of light and dark, walking only in the light can blind you, treading only in the darkness may cloud your vision. If you wish to remain in the light, you must know its difference from the dark; continue to resist its temptation but understand its power. The same can be said of those who walk in the dark. A kernel of light and darkness exists within every heart, you must learn to master your impulses._ ' The voice growled, ' _Do not underestimate the power of each, but understand that so long as you stay determined and never falter, neither can overtake you. Respect the balance of light and dark. Keep your spirit strong._ '

I placed a hand over my chest, "Stay strong and understand the balance? Seems good, I can do that."

Light suddenly erupted from the floor and I covered my eyes with my arm, trying to block the light from blinding me. I suddenly felt like I was flying upwards and jerked awake from my meditation. Breathing heavily, I glanced around and relaxed when I realized I was still in the gummi ship. I slumped against the wall and saw that Starlight was nowhere to be found. A bit of unease wormed its way in my chest and I called out to my keyblade. Shock filled me as something completely different than Starlight formed in my hand. The keyblade's handle was black with a white tip and was surrounded completely by the guard, which was yellow. Each side of the guard sported two spikes that pointed diagonally downward. The shaft of the Keyblade was yellow with concave edges and ends in a point. On the tip of the shaft was a large, silver, X shaped charm shaped like a four-pointed star more than a letter. The charm was the only thing that connected the teeth of the Keyblade to the rest of the weapon. The teeth were formed by a black, circular arc lined with spikes. The keychain was a black ring lined with golden spikes, similar to the teeth of the Keyblade.

' _Abaddon Plasma_...' The voice murmured in my head.

The spikes of the left and right sides rounded off in the middle as a longer spike, which had a black line that runs down its middle. I felt a muted swell of power within me and breathed out a whoosh. I stood up and made my way to the cockpit. Sora was dozing off in his chair while Goofy was snoring loudly.

Donald apparently heard me coming and said, "Wake them up, we're about to hit Traverse Town."

* * *

We all walked out into the plaza and made our way to the accessory shop. We needed to stock up on some healing items and from what Donald had told me, I wanted to see if I could find some elixirs from the items shop. But before all that, I decided that it be better if I checked in with Cid to see if he had anything that would help us out in our journey. I had already offered the horn necklace to Sora, but he simply tapped his own necklace and told me to wear it.

When we walked in Cid saw me and waved me over, "Well, good to see you kid. I got something of yours that you left here."

With that he held out a bracelet that was colored the same purple as the guard armor heartless.

"What is it?" Sora asked, "Did you find it from the heartless we beat?"

He nodded, "Figured it was yours since you all beat the thing, so I decided to hold on to it till you all came back."

He dropped it into my hand and I promptly clipped it to my arm, where it pulsed slightly and I felt a light tingle run up my body, "Huh... thanks Cid. I appreciate it."

He nodded, "So what can I do you for?"

"Right." Sora said excitedly, "Can we see your stock?"

He grinned, "Sure thing."

* * *

We walked out with some new gear and a noticeable loss of munny, all in all though, I wasn't unhappy - despite the fact that we had no idea about prices and the like - when to defense I didn't have the luxury to care too much for money. I was wearing three rings, one element ring on my left hand, and on my right hand I was wearing a obsidian ring and chaos ring. Sora also donned a element ring and opted for the protect chain rather than the obsidian ring. Donald and Goofy both got protect chains and element rings.

With our group officially ready to fight, we stopped by the item shop to buy some elixirs and boarded the gummi ship and took off for the next world. I sat in the cockpit and watched the stars that glinted in the sky.

"It's pretty peaceful up here when you think about it." I mused, "Isn't it?"

Donald had already set a course or the next world so Goofy was the only other person in the cockpit, as Sora was still napping. Both me and Sora had sparred earlier with each other and I could already begin to feel the improvement in my speed and reflexes as we slashed at each other, ducking and weaving blows here and there. I wasn't quite as sure though, but it seemed that since I had chosen my path in that dream, it was as though my growth was also accelerating (I just really hoped that it wasn't just wishful thinking on my part). Donald was taking a very well deserved rest and instructed Goofy only to wake him when the next world was alerted to be coming.

He apparently thought that Goofy shouldn't try to land at all, let alone fly the craft.

"It sure is." Goofy agreed.

"Do you ever wonder what you would do if you weren't a knight?" I asked, still glancing out at the many stars, "I mean if you could be something else?"

"Gawrsh," He replied, an unusually serious look of concentration on his face, "I really don't think I woulda liked ta being anything else."

"Really?" I said, turning to him, "Why not."

"Because I wouldn't be with my friends." He said cheerfully, "King Mickey and Donald are my best pals, and we're always gonna be. We woulda done anything for each other and when King Mickey wanted us ta be the royal mage and captain of the guard, we were happy ta be there. It's what friends do, back ya up when ya ask them and even if ya don't."

I blinked at Goofy in surprise, he hadn't struck me as the type to be so... well-spoken in regards to friendship, but he was really was passionate about it.

My lips quirked up in a small smile, "You know Goofy, you're a great person."

He chuckled and gave me a bright smile.

"Sora's a lot like that." I remarked, shaking my head in amusement "He's alway sees the good in people and watches his friend's back however best he can. Even on the islands and as a kid. I sometimes worry about how he is willing to trust everyone and forgive them, but Sora's been a pretty good judge of character. I honestly think the keyblade couldn't have picked a better wielder."

"It picked you." Goofy said with a raised eyebrow.

I chuckled a bit weakly, "I don't know why. I sometimes wonder if it made the right choice."

"Why's that?" He gave me an inquisitive look.

"I don't have anything special." I sighed as I gazed at my hand, flexing it as though I was going to summon the keyblade, "I'm just some kid who's luck of the draw gave him a weapon of unimaginable capabilities, but it's not like I think I fit the role. Sora - I don't even have to think about it - he's definitely hero material. But as for me? I'm not strong and smart like Riku is, not boundlessly optimistic like Kairi is, not determined like Tidus, not super friendly like Selphie, or brave like Wakka. I'm just me."

"Gwarsh Niji, maybe you don't see it but I think it's pretty obvious." He said.

"What?" I said, "What is so obvious?"

"You're loyal and kind." He said happily, "The ways I see it, ya look out for your friends the best you can; just like Sora. Ya followed Sora when it would have been easier to stay in Traverse Town. Ya thanked Donald for helping ya as soon as you could. Ya don't want ta leave anyone behind, no matter what."

I blushed in embarrassment, it was always awkward for me to receive praise. I never did take it well, it was strange when someone said something about me that seemed to make me out to be better than I saw myself.

I scratched the back of my head, "Thanks Goofy."

He just chuckled.

* * *

The place we emerged from on next world looked a lot like the gladiatorial buildings that we had studied in history class. There were two statues of what seemed to be soldiers crossing blades over a huge door . Braziers were lit with shining fires and the entire front of the building was elegantly designed, being both beautiful and imposing at the same time. It looked like the entrance to some sort of famous museum or arena if they hyper-advertised themselves.

"Woah..." I couldn't help but marvel at this place, it was really amazing.

"What do you think this place is for?" Sora asked, "The only way to go is through the gates under the statues..."

I frowned, "Can't say what it is for to be frank... it could be a museum, the gates to a city, I really just don't know... but I think we ought to go inside. The best way to find out what we can do is to look around and see what is around. With luck, maybe we might find someone from around here..."

With that in mind, we strolled over to the building and pushed open the doors to enter the building.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hey guys, here's another chapter!**

 **Credit to all respective owners and the like.**

 **Cheers!**

 **Goddamn you autocorrect.**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

To be honest the interior of the building wasn't quite as... imposing as the outside. Personally I found that to be the most comforting thing about it as I wasn't one for the whole extravagance and showing off thing. We saw what seemed to be a half-goat, half-man thing that was wholly focused brushing off a sign (I think it was called a satyr?). I approached him and was about to ask what this place was when he cut me off.

"Good timing," He said without looking back, pointing off to the side "Give me a hand, will ya? Move that pedestal over there will ya?"

We turned to see a large block and I gulped at the sheer size.

"I got to spruce this place up for the games." He continued on heedlessly.

Move that?

Sora tried first, pressing against it and trying to take a step forward, straining against the pedestal as hard as he could. Despite his best effort, the most he did was exhaust himself and back away with a huff of exertion. I tried next and despite using all my strength, The block stubbornly remained where it was. Sora and I both tried to move it and while we pushed as hard as we could, even our combined strength did little more than make it squeak and shift 'maybe' an inch over.

"It weighs a ton!" Sora complained to me.

Giving up on that test of our physical strength, we both took a moment to gather ourselves and went back of to the satyr.

"It's way too heavy." Sora said.

"Like more weight than we can possibly move!" I added.

"What?" The satyr yelped in shock, whirling around, "Too heavy? Since when have you been such a little -"

His eyes landed on our group after he glanced down.

"Oh." He said, "Wrong guy. What're you doing here?"

He didn't give us much time to answer before he hopped down from his pedestal and landed on the ground, "This here is the world-famous coliseum - heroes only!"

He advanced on Donald, who began to back away, "And I got my hand full preparing for the games. So run along, pip-squeaks!"

Sora's face scrunched up slightly and I grew slightly irritated.

He looked at us and put his hands on his hips, in a slightly softer tone, he said, "Look, it's like this: Heroes are coming from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the coliseum."

Donald crossed his arms, clearly looking insulted, "You got heroes standing right in front of you!"

Goofy came and placed a hand on both Sora's and my shoulders, "Yup! These two are real heroes chosen by the keyblade!"

"And we're heroes too!" Donald tacked on proudly.

As much as I wanted to declare that we were heroes, I honestly couldn't completely back up Donald and Goofy faithful endorsing of Sora and I. I knew we had barely started on our quest and in lieu of that, we were probably rookies-at-best. For all we really knew about this world, heroes probably had more than what could be a cumulative day of training and fighting under their belts, learning to refine their techniques and getting stronger over years of practice. Despite all the sparring that Sora and I did on the island, Donald and Goofy were probably the closest to being the heroes that they claimed to be.

"Heroes? Those runts?" He laughed, promptly having a fit of deep laughing at our expense.

And with his insults to our stature (this guy barely came up to my waist! He had no room to mock!), my acceptance of his logic and their world's requirements decided to vacate my head as indignant anger seeped in to fill the void.

"What's so funny?" Sora half-boasted and half-complained, "I fought a bunch of monsters!

As the satyr finished his fit (or at least it lowered to chuckles), before pointing to the block, "Hey if you can't even move this..."

With that he placed his hands against the block and began to ineffectively shove at it.

"...You can't..."

More shoving with no perceivable progress.

"...Call yourself..."

Sora crossed his arms and I rested a hands on my hips as he continued to fail to even push it an inch over.

"... A hero!"

With that he slumped to the ground, panting and huffing even worse than we did after our attempt.

He looked over at us and sighed, "Okay so it takes more than brawn. Well well, lets see what you can do."

* * *

After an introduction (the satyr's name being Phil) and a warning that the trials wouldn't be quite as easy as we thought, he led us into the arena. The test was actually little more than smashing a few barrels, however it was timed to see just how fast we could clear it. The first stretch of the run wasn't actually that bad, it wasn't hard to break the barrels that were set around, and if you hit them hard enough, you could send them flying to hit other barrels. So the second one was a bit... more complicated as it involved barrels that were meant to launched into others as well as some placed on platforms that involved a bit of light parkour to get to. Other than that we all managed to clear out respective courses in the time constraints that were laid out for us.

With that we took a moment to gather ourselves and walk back over to Phil.

"You know, you guys aren't bad." He said.

"Looks like we're headed for the games then!" Sora cheered, grinning and resting his hands behind his head.

"Afraid not kiddo." Phil replied.

"What? Why?" Sora cried, dismayed.

"Two words:" Phil responded, "You. Guys. Ain't. Heroes."

I sweat-dropped, 'This guy... really needs to work on his counting.'

Phil wasn't done yet though, he held out his hand and in it was a glowing yellow orb of crackling energy, "If you really want to learn how to be a hero, try mastering this thunder spell."

Both me and Sora nodded to each other and touched the orb, and there was the sting of static electricity that coursed through our bodies. I winced and rolled my shoulders while Sora rubbed at one of his arms.

"Well, do you mind if we use the arena to practice?" I asked, deciding to just let my own private disappointment at not being able to join the games go, "That way we can at least make some progress right?"

"Well, I can't let ya into the games, but I think it's fine if I train you for them." Phil allowed.

* * *

With that small allowance granted, we decided to at least spend some time there to train. Time probably was of the essence in our quest, but the stronger we got, the better our chances of living through the quest to make it to the end and finding our friends. In addition to learning thunder - after a bit of badgering and begging - Donald also decided to begin teaching us 'Cure', something which I was very enthusiastic to learn myself. Potions and elixirs cost money, and while it was good to carry them on hand and money was inconsequential when compared to health, knowing a spell that was immediate would definitely help out in combat in a pinch or two. We wouldn't have to stop and back up to get bottles and having to yank it out of our pockets, which limited distractions.

When we weren't trying out our spells or meditating, Phil was watching me and Sora spar. For a rather small and pot-bellied goat, he was actually a good trainer, pointing out spots that could use improvement and helping us in sharpening our attacks. He taught us moves like 'Slapshot', 'Hurricane Period', and 'Zantetsuken'; everything he taught us were powerful but required a certain amount of time and finesse to work into our individual combat styles. We got a grounding in it and that was more than enough for now, it was just something we would have to work on improving over the course of our journey. He also would toss pots at as and make sure we wouldn't use our keyblades to deflect them, increasing our reflexes and speed (mainly because being hit with the pots was painful enough to act as a strong motivator).

* * *

"Gah!" I yelped as a pot hit me straight in the face.

I heard a snort form Sora before a crash from the same direction made me smirk.

He was groaning as shards of pottery fell out of his hair, "Ow..."

"Not so funny when the shoe's on the other foot is it?" I chuckled.

"Shut it." Sora grumbled.

Donald raised his wand and in a wave of green light we both felt much better and got up, dusting our clothes.

"Well, kids." Phil said brushing off his palms, "It's been fun, but I really don't got more time and you pipsqueaks need to go."

"You sure we can't enter the games?" Sora pleaded.

"Sorry kid, no pass, no entry." Phil replied.

* * *

With that firm dismissal, we dejectedly left and began to walk away, for all the fun I did have learning new moves, I really did want to try my hand in the games and see how I measured up with the competition.

"Rather a stubborn old goat, wouldn't you say?" A voice drawled from behind us.

We turned to see a man in a black robe with cold blue skin and blue flames burning from the top of his head as through he set his own hair on fire.

"Who are you?" Donald queried.

Ignoring Donald, he began to walk over to Sora and me, "Whoa hold on there, fuzz boy and blue-eye. Wait let me guess. You want to enter the games, right?"

He put an arm around Sora and smiled, "Well then, hey, get a load of this."

With a 'vvrrrp' noise he made, a puff of blue light glowed in his hand to form a piece of stylized paper that was emblazoned with a 'Tournament Pass' on the front.

"A pass?" Sora said.

He placed it in Sora's hand and walked away, "It's all yours. Good luck, kiddos. I'm pulling for you, little short-stacks."

We all looked down at the pass.

"Well..." I said dubiously, "That was surprisingly and somewhat strangely convenient."

"Even so, we got a pass!" Sora cheered, "With this we can compete n the games, we just got stronger and learned a few awesome moves, this'll be perfect to test 'em out!"

I sighed but smirked, "Then let's go."

* * *

We strolled back to phil and presented the pass (with a flourish on Sora's part).

"Hey!" Phil grumbled, "How'd you get this?"

"Can we enter the games now?" Sora inquired hopefully.

"Well, I guess so..." Phil replied hesitantly, "We start with the preliminaries!"

We cheered but Phil cut though our enthusiasm with a warning, "Some real weirdoes signed up for the games. Better watch yourself."

* * *

We walked up to the stage and blinked when a barrier rose around the edges to keep from a ring out. We got the shock of our lives when we realized what Phil meant by 'weirdos'.

Heartless were waiting for us in the ring. Soldiers and those blue lantern heartless ( I think they were called a Blue Rhapsody?) were twitching for the match began and lunged when it started. We scattered so we could divide them into more manageable groupings. I took my soldier out with ease, ducking under a cyclone kick and using slapshot to knock it into the path of the blue rhapsody's bolt of ice. As the heartless began to evaporate, I jumped up and swung backwards, using my force to unleash a hurricane period that knocked the heartless into oblivion. I landed and saw that everyone dealing with the remnants as easily as I had.

Phil was waiting for us as we stepped off the arena.

"You're no heroes yet," He said, "but you ain't doing bad. Lucky you came to me for coaching."

Just then, someone walked by, he had blonde spiky hair and was wearing dull-dark blue jeans, brown boots, a yellow clawed glove, a ribbed vest, and a red tattered cape. He had a shoulder pauldron and his cape's front was pulled up as though to keep his mouth from being seen and belts wrapped around his clothes and the edges of his shoes and gloves as though to help keep them tight on his body. His icy blue eyes scanned each of us and he heaved his large sword - wrapped in bandages no less - up and rested it on his shoulders as he advanced on the heartless in the ring.

I gulped as I met his eyes, he definitely radiated a frigid sort of experience that reminded me of Leon. If that was the case and his skill was anything like the gunblade wielder, I was going to make sure I wasn't going to pull stops on him if we met in the ring.

"Something tells me he'll be a tough one to beat. Who knows, maybe you'll end up facing him." Phil said.

I watched him decimate the heartless that tried to hit him and swallowed again, "Knowing our luck?" I muttered, "I do know. And I don't like it. What's the guy's name?"

"Cloud." Phil replied.

* * *

The next match seemed to be more varied and relied more on numbers than strength, as a dozen shadows were twitching under some red nocturnes and blue rhapsodies. I ducked to the side and swept my keyblade in an arc, shouting 'deep freeze' which hit the four of the heartless that lunged at me. One of the bolts of ice hit a blue rhapsody which glowed and fired a bolt at Sora, who rolled out of the way.

"Sorry!" I called as I stabbed my keyblade into a shadow and made it evaporate.

"Careful! Hitting them with magic they use only charges them!" Donald cautioned.

I had guessed that magic attacks of their nature wouldn't hurt them, but knowing they could convert that magic to power their attacks made me appreciate exactly how small and unassuming enemies really could be dangerous.

Either way, we hadn't joined the tournament to get knocked out in the second round.

We smashed the heartless into submission and made our way off the stage.

"Say, you're better than I thought!" Phil said, nodding at us, "Wish he was here to see this."

"Who?" Sora asked.

"Hercules. He's a hero if there ever was one. Too bad he's off visiting his father."

We waited in the stands as we watched the other matches. I particularly focused on the blond guy as he fought, if I could get an idea of his style we'd probably stand a better chance against him if we met in the tournament. From what I gathered, he was being very smart in how he fought. He knew he was stronger than his opponents so he didn't use any flashy moves that may have cost stamina or show the true depth of his power. He was fast though, just like Leon in that even though he was wielding a crazily large weapon, it didn't seem to slow him or his attacks down all that much. I had only used ice spells to give me some breathing room and because of their wide range and ability to hit multiple opponents, the blond was more than capable of simply powering through most of the magic he was hit with, shrugging it off with very little difficulty or batting them away with a quick swipe of his blade. Granted the magic probably wasn't even as strong as Sora's or my fireballs, but they should at least make him wince. Instead, he simply cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders once as he made his way off the stage.

* * *

I grimaced at the wave of red nocturnes and blue rhapsodies that awaited us on the stage. The bell sounded and I shifted to my left as some of the heartless drifted forward and other charged. I ducked around a spinning red nocturne and flung my keyblade at a blue rhapsody which evaporated into nothing as my keyblade struck it. Sora was suddenly behind me and I dropped to a crouch as he aimed above me and shouted, "Fire!"

A fireball struck another blue rhapsody and I summoned my keyblade to my hand as I dashed from my crouch to attack three red nocturne that were cornering Goofy. As they switched their attention to me, Goofy crushed two of them and I swatted the remaining one into oblivion. Donald was handling his foes with enviable ease as magic and counter-magic was the sorcerer's bread and butter. The heartless that attacked him met with a swift and likely painful end.

To be honest, Cloud was much more mobile as we watched him deal with his group of blue rhapsodies and red nocturnes. He sidestepped and deflected multiple blasts of magic and dispersed his heartless with every swing of his sword. He gazed at our group for a moment as his round ended before striding off the stage. The next match was a heartless group with pretty much all the different types (sans large bodies) we've had to deal with so far. The mages were turning out to be the most annoying enemy as they had the annoying tendency to interrupt any combo with a burst of magic and - as if they weren't bad enough - never stayed in respective groups as they drifted around. If he red nocturnes were grouped, at least we could use ice magic to destroy them without running the risk of charging the blue rhapsodies, but the mages tried to stick together in varied groups. In response to that way of thought, I decided that the mages had to be the first to go.

And summarily made the next bout - which consisted fo nothing BUT mage heartless - a massive pain as well as tiring as one had to keep moving just to stay ahead of the magic. The mages were dangerous because of their abilities, they didn't have a speed advantage, nor were they particularly hardy, but they didn't NEED to be. They were pretty much there to run as interference for the more damaging heartless or unleash a barrage of magic that could force someone on the defense and give their allies time to charge.

* * *

I sat down heavily and let out a slow exhale as I gave my legs a moment to rest. I wanted to use a potion, but I was going to wait until we were about to fight cloud, because if we beat out next match, he was going to be our opponent. Cloud seemed to struggle in the face of an onslaught of magic, using his massive sword as a makeshift shield to block the oncoming spells. Soon though, he got fed up of being on the receiving end of the attack, and with a shout, raised his sword to head level before lunging forward, piercing through the spells and magic with a lancing attack. He only stopped to pivot on one foot and once agains lance through the heartless, obliterating them with little trouble.

My jaw dropped as he simply walked off the stage.

What in the hell was that move? He barreled through the blows as if they weren't even there!

He was definitely going to be trouble.

* * *

The last round before we met Cloud (because I was sure as the keyblade was a weapon that he was going to be our opponent) was a round that consisted of four red mages, four blue mages, and a large body waiting for us. I already had my plan of attack mapped and passed it to Sora, Donald, and Goofy.

Take out the mages and - if need be - keep the large body busy.

The large body - even when struck from behind - could tank a decent amount of hits, however, it was far too slow to even try to hit us when we were moving. They also seemed half asleep until hit enough to get angry, that making them slow enough that we could run circles around it before it could waddle over from its position to us. The mages would probably keep us from beating on the large body and therefore needed to be dealt with immediately. With that, Sora and I were going to act as a vanguard and engage the large body while Donald and Goofy would take out the mages.

And it turned out to be easier than most of the other fights as Donald and Goofy sprang into action. Sora and I continued the harass the large body, shifting just out of reach as it followed and leaving most of the stage clear for Donald and Goofy to take out the heartless. It got mad at us pesky keyblade wielders fairly quickly and began to emit wispy darkness from its body as it began trying to tackle us. Sora and I separated and came up on each side of it as it launched itself at us.

"Hey Sora," I called, "You want to try our newest attack spell?"

He grinned and nodded as he raised his keyblade.

I followed suit and we both yelled, "Thunder!"

A large bolt of lighting dropped from the sky and struck the large body directly on the skull as it got up and made to attack us once more. It stood there, sparking and looking almost puzzled by the attack before it toppled backwards, its body fading into nothingness.

With that we won the semi-final matches, and were now ready to be set against Cloud.


	10. Chapter 10

**Credit to all respective owners!**

 **I hope I did a good job on this chapter!**

 **Merry Christmas! (and New Year's [depending on when this comes out])**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I stretched a bit before our match with Cloud, if nothing else it would at least make sure I was limber for the fight up ahead. I summoned my keyblade, it's presence at my side made me feel a bit more at ease. In all honesty, I was more than a little worried of the final match. I had only seen a fraction of Cloud's power and that had left me reasonably cautious when it came to approaching him. Beyond that, I could also tell that the guy was using darkness or at least touched by it judging by the slight feel of the power that was emanating from him.

"This guy..." I muttered, "He reminds me way too much of Leon..."

"How?" Goofy asked in slight confusion, "They don't look that similar..."

"He's strong. Really strong." I replied quietly, swallowing around the lump of worry in my throat.

We made our way to the arena and saw Cloud already in his stance waiting for us. When the match began, we all sprang into motion, unwilling to sit still and be struck. Cloud circled to our right while Sora dashed at him. I dashed to the side and pivoted to leap at him. Donald raised his staff and Goofy held back waiting for an opportune moment. With a quick swipe, he slashed Sora away, and then used an upward swing to launch me away. Lightning came down, but he simply rested the flat of the heavy blade across his shoulders and crouched down slightly, ducking his head; he blocked the bolts on the flat of his blade but his eyes widened as he saw a shield heading for his face. Goofy uppercutted him with the edge of his shield and he staggered back, grunting a curse. Sora and I had recovered by this point and leapt so we stood shoulder to shoulder, both yelling, "Fire!"

Twin fireballs erupted from the tips of our keyblades and intertwined before slamming into Cloud in a explosion of fire. We barely waited a second before he came out of the smoke with that same lancing attack that I had seen him use in the previous matches.

He'd been holding back in just how much power he put.

He powered straight through our formation, knocking us aside as though we weighed less than air. I hit the floor head-first and my vision swam sickeningly as I tried to focus through the pain and fuzziness in my skull. I saw a blur heading towards me and I clumsily rolled to the side as it passed. I managed to focus myself enough to cast a cure and shook my head as sat up on my hands when he finished lancing around the stage. He planted a foot against Goofy's shield and with a sharp exhalation of 'ha!' and a push, sent Goofy skidding away. Cloud swung his blade around in a wide arc to force away Sora and followed up by leaping high into the air while flipping his massive sword so it pointed down.

I saw his eyes flit to Donald - he knew Donald was covering us every time we began to tire - and I screamed, "Donald, move!"

He same down like a meteor, Donald just barely managing to scramble out of the way. A plume of dust erupted form where Cloud landed and when it cleared his sword was buried a good few feet into the floor. Almost instantaneously, Sora was on him before he could fully retrieve his massive sword from the floor. Cloud hissed as Sora hit him with a heavy overhand before wrenching his blade out - flinging chunks of rock at me an Goofy, forcing us to move away- and rushing Sora. Sora began to block and divert Cloud's attacks, eyes wide with panic as he desperately tried to defend himself from the heavy strikes. He was pushed up against the barrier of the stage, sparks flying from their locked weapons as Cloud pressed down harder on him.

Sora fell to a knee and began to groan as the heavy weight of Cloud's weapon began to inch closer to his shoulder in what would definitely be a debilitating blow.

I roared as I used the Zantetsuken, dashing at Cloud and striking him with enough force to knock him a good few feet to the side.

"Back off!" I growled, setting myself back in my stance.

Cloud simply huffed and stood up, rolling his shoulders while he glared, "Hm..."

I calmed myself and took a slow breath as I thought about our chances. Thanks to my cure spell, I was pretty fresh, and I could hope that the damage that were inflicting on Cloud were taking their toll. I began to launch fireballs as fast as I could, screaming 'fire' at at every swing. Cloud spun his blade in one hand before beginning to slash and disperse my fireballs with ease. When I felt my magic run thin, I lunged forward and began to attack Cloud, swinging as unpredictably as I could while trying to duck around, under, or away from his blade when it swung at me. Cloud stood still, blocking my assault and beginning to push me back with an almost bored look on his face. I wasn't getting anywhere with this attack; Cloud was toying with me and when he got too bored he'd probably knock me out of commission, it was time for an all or nothing. I stepped back out of the way of swipe and leapt up, positioning myself in the air to bring my keyblade down in a heavy blow. Cloud dropped his stance slightly and set his sword to his right, intending to swipe me right out of the air.

His blade began to move from its set position and everything seemed to slow.

I brought my weapon down with a cry of, "Thunder!"

Arcs of yellow electricity began to rain down on Cloud as his eyes widened before flicking up as I felt the last of my reserves vanish. I shifted so that I more less was applying all of my weight into keeping his sword locked down with the teeth of Abaddon Plasma and away from his body to maximize the amount of damage he could take. The bolts of lighting struck him and he let out a cry of pain as the lightning crackled across his body. His suddenly furious eyes fixed on me and his foot lashed out, slamming into my ribs and kicking me all the way across the stage. I landed with a painful thunk and curled around the pain in my stomach, groaning miserably.

It felt like I was hit by a prize blitzball player's fastest hardball right in the gut.

I cracked an eye open to see Cloud stalking towards me, murder in his eyes and his massive sword in a white-knuckled grip. I planted my keyblade into the floor and used it to push myself up and held it with my right hand out while covering the pulsing pain in my torso with my left. It was hard to keep myself from crumpling and my legs shivered, but it didn't matter. I had to find a way to slip away and use a cure spell, I needed mobility more than magic in this situation.

But I had no magic, and if I tried to reach for a ether or a potion in my current state, Cloud would strike the moment my attention shifted.

Before he could get any closer though, Sora and Goofy crashed into him with the force of a car - Sora using the Zantetsuken and Goofy with a Knocksmash - sending him towards Donald, who staff was glowing with a harsher red glow, brighter than anytime I'd seen before.

"Fire!" The duck sorcerer exclaimed.

And why he was considered the royal mage truly showed.

A sphere of almost-liquid, wild, and swirling flame - that put any of Sora's or my attempts at the spell to absolute and disgraced shame - soared from the tip of the sorcerer's staff, and erupted into a explosion as it hit Cloud squarely in the chest. Cloud let out a shout of pain and tumbled across the stage from me, trailing smoke from burnt patches of his skin and clothes. He groaned in pain made to get up but fell to one knee. He panted and his head hung low as he accepted his defeat.

"Damn." He growled.

Sora walked up to him and I followed, surreptitiously pouring a potion on myself that helped soothe away the pain in my side. I grimaced at the utter depletion of my magical energy but forcibly ignored the feeling of discomfort. I sighed and dismissed my keyblade just in time for him to give us a rather cold look before he suddenly stiffened and glanced up. Just then a shadow loomed and huge black paw smashed down on Cloud, squashing him to the floor. Sora and I gasped at the large three-headed dog that was spewing black vapor from its mouths and growling down at us. It lifted itself slightly - rocking back on its hind legs - and then descended down on us. I fell on my butt as it loomed closer but there was a gust of wind and a blur and suddenly it was raising itself back up again.

No, someone was there, holding the beast back from landing on its front paws and attacking us. A guy was wearing bronze armor with a blue cape, sandals, had orange hair, and was ripped.

Like muscles that would probably be able to crush solid rock to dust with barely any effort.

"Herc!" Phil cried.

"Phil, get them out of here!" Herc ordered.

We all got out fo the stadium as fast as we could, only pausing when we were more or less safe in the lobby. I panted and nearly stumbled as my drained reserves twinged as they began to slowly build back up. I slumped against the wall and sunk to sit against it.

"Whew, that was close!" Phil exclaimed.

"What in God's name was that thing?" I panted.

"Cereberus, he's the guardian of the underworld. Herc should be able to handle him. Then again, he might not, things don't look too good..." Phil fretted.

"Why not?" Sora inquired.

"Cloud's still in there." I realized as I downed an ether, feeling my drained reserves swell back to full, "Cloud's probably out cold and severely injured. Even more than that, Hercules has to probably fight while making sure that Cloud won't be trampled or eaten. Dividing his attention like that against something that literally guards hell? He'd be in some serious trouble."

I growled to myself at just how miserably bad the situation was. We had no way of knowing that someone who could command Cerberus would let it loose at the end of our bout.

"Who controls that thing anyway?" I asked Phil.

"Hades." Phil replied, still glancing at the door, "Black robes blue skin, blue fiery hair."

Our group collective jaws dropped.

"He's the guy who gave us the pass!" I howled, his plan immediately coming together in my head, "He was waiting for us to be exhausted from the matches and then he tried to kill us! We were being played, and now Hercules is paying the price!"

Sora and I shared a look, and nodded to each other. Sora casted a quick cure on himself and then downed and ether. We summoned our keyblades and began to walk over to the door. Donald and Goofy took some potions and immediately followed, war faces on.

"You guys aren't going to the arena, are you?" Phil demanded, "This isn't a game! This is for real!"

Sora frowned, "You can decide if I am hero material or not!"

I scowled, hand tightening on the handle of my keyblade, "Frankly being a hero here doesn't even matter to me, I am not going to just sit by while I can do something to help! Even more so, I hate being manipulated, and I am not going to let Hades know he picked the wrong person to screw over!"

When we dashed back into the arena to help, Hercules was backing into a corner, an unconscious Cloud slung over one shoulder. The hero looked pissed, grimacing as he felt the wall behind him brush his elbow as he tried to make more room.

We ran onto the stadium as Phil bellowed, "Squirts, I got two words of advice for you: ATTACK!"

Cerberus turned to face us and Herc dashed past us to get Cloud to safety, more or less leaving us to deal with the beast. I only hoped Hercules had managed to wear it down a bit before we came.

I infused my keyblade with a bit of power and flung it at the three-headed dog, smacking the beast right in the middle head with my strike raid. It howled in rage and only grew angrier as I repeated the action twice, hitting the other two heads. Sora and Donald both strafed to the side, calling down lightning. Despite the strike from above and the lightning coursing through its body. Its right head focused on me and spat a fireball at me, which was stronger than I was going to be able to block. I gathered my magic and prepared to blast ice to lessen the pain, but Goofy was already in front of me. Seeing him flick me a look, I nodded and spun as I pressed my back to his and dug my keyblade into the floor. He caught the blast on his shield and the forced pushed him against me, but my bracing managed to keep us from sliding back.

"Keep moving around it and strike with single hits, we need to stay out of bite range!" I called as Goofy and I separated to dodge another blast.

Sora nodded and moved in, jumping to swing his keyblade across the beast's left face before lading in a roll and dashing away. Donald was next, strafing to the side and letting out a wave of ice bolts that impacted Cerberus' middle head. Goofy leapt high and brought his shield down in a two-handed swing against Cerberus' right head before landing and leaping away. I tried to get in close to attack again, but the dog simply stomped around, its enormous size and footfalls keeping all of us from moving in to attack. I rolled back as a mouth came down on me, digging into the ground and chomping with enough force to crush the tournament floor like kibble.

Sora quickly seized the opportunity and scrambled up Cerberus' back. He leapt into the air and using hurricane period, smacked the middle head repeatedly.

Donald waved his wand as he quacked, "Blizzard!"

Stronger bursts of frost erupted from his wand, hitting Cerberus with enough force to make the beast stagger to the side as frost crawled up over its right face.

"Thunder!" I roared, and lightning flashed down on the beast.

The Beast howled its pain as lightning coursed through its body and all three heads simultaneously rose and fell with their mouths wide open. The mouths began to vomit streams of smoky darkness out and into the ground. I was knocked back as explosion of darkness began to erupt out the ground around me. Scrambling out of the way of another eruption, I began to run around the stadium and leapt into the vacated stands as more explosions rumbled around me. Sora, Donald, Goofy were likewise being pursued by the darkness that was blowing craters in the ground behind them. I tried to keep my steps and movements unpredictable but the explosions doggedly followed right at my heels.

As if that wasn't problematic enough, Cerberus began to launch more spheres of flame, and even we weren't able to fully avoid all of them. I threw myself to the side as an ball of fire exploded next to me, sending me crashing into the wall of the coliseum from the extra force. I thought I may have heard my name but I wasn't quite sure. I lay stunned for a moment trying to think through the chorus of bells in my ears and the phantom heat stinging my skin. I struggled to rise and managed to get to my feet right as Cerberus turned my direction, snarling in fury.

"Oh god dammit." I groaned.

I staggered out of the way just as Cerberus' mouths descended. I raised my keyblade and cast a cure just in time for a head to hone in on me. I jammed my keyblade right in between the teeth that were about to close on me in a desperate gamble. I fully expected the keyblade in my hand shatter or bend before being spat out like an seed of fruit, taking the top half of my arms right along with it.

But it held.

The teeth strained to close on the weapon but the keyblade wasn't even shaking, bearing the full brunt of the guardian of hell's bite like it wasn't containing enough force to probably crush and grind a normal person into paste.

I let go of my weapon and ducked under the beast, diving and rolling under the beast before scrambling out from under it. I held out my hand and as the keyblade began to reform in my hand I heard the 'clack' of the teeth crashing together. I skidded to a stop and spun holding my keyblade back in my stance. My magic was already beginning to wane from use and I cursed at just how tanky this damn monster was.

It was beginning to turn to face me when it stumbled, all of the damage it had been taking finally catching up to it.

A hand lightly patted against my back and I jerked slightly at the feeling before realizing it was Sora giving me a concerned look.

"Are you okay?" He asked as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me.

I took a deep breath and nodded, "Yeah. Together?"

Donald came to my right and nodded, "Okay."

We gathered as much magic as we dared, and raised our weapons to the sky as Cerberus began to shake off the pain and stalked towards us.

"THUNDER!" We roared.

A shower of painfully bright lightning fell from the sky with the might of heaven's wrath. Lightning arced from body part to body part as they struck Cerberus, lighting up the coliseum in front of us with a blinding light. The beast howled as the magic coursed through its body and it finally slid to its stomach in pain. The heads snarled and it's paws tensed against the floor - loudly making to rise - before the monster abruptly fell to the floor, heads and muscles twitching as small sparks of lighting darted from them.

We all stared at the felled creature, as thought waiting for it to rise again.

Nothing.

We won.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hello again! Back to continue writing this and my Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic story, but honestly updates are going to be slow as I am now juggling school and filming projects that I created for class and all that. Anyway, I do have something new to say if you read my RWBY stories. I am taking a loooong break from them, I haven't been able to get into it as of late so my passion dried up.**

 **Reviews for this and my Star Wars story are much appreciated (please only constructive criticism)!**

 **All credit to respective owners!**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

"Thus, I do hereby dub thee junior heroes, and confer upon thee full rights and privileges to participate in the games. Furthermore -" Phil was reciting from a scroll as Hercules stood at his side.

"Hey! What do you mean 'Junior Heroes'?" Donald shouted indignantly.

Phil waved a hand in a dismissive manner, "You rookies still don't understand what it takes to be a true hero."

Goofy blinked, "So what does it take?"

Hercules smiled, "Well, that's just something that you'll have to find out for yourselves. Just the way that I did."

Sora thumped his chest and grinned, "No problem! We'll start by proving ourselves in the games!"

I smirked at Sora's enthusiasm, "Just you guys wait, we'll sweep the entire thing, no sweat."

Phil shook his head, "There ain't gonna be any games for a while. Gotta clean up the mess from that last battle first."

I sighed but tilted my head in acceptance, "Oh well."

Sora followed up with a cheerful, "Okay. We'll be back."

* * *

We left the coliseum to see Cloud sitting on the steps that led to the gummi ship, apparently lost in thought. In all honesty? He looked a bit sad and definitely gloomy after all the trouble he had apparently been put through by Hades.

Sora approached and asked, "Hey, are you alright?"

He looked up and replied with a simple, "Yeah."

Sora seemed to hesitate but pressed on, "So why did you go along with him, anyway?"

I bobbed my head to accentuate the point, "Sora's right, I was a bit thrown by how conveniently he just happened to have a pass for us."

Sora shrugged.

"I should have probably thought about it rather than just accepted it." I muttered to myself.

Cloud steepled his fingers and then lowered his face to his his lips behind his hand, pausing as though to gather his thoughts, "I'm looking for someone." He explained quietly, "Hades promised to help."

We all were quiet as that, a soft understanding passing between us as we knew exactly why he would be willing to make a deal.

We were looking for people too, after all.

He sat up and continued, "I tried to exploit the power of darkness, but it backfired."He looked up at the sky, "I fell into darkness, and I couldn't find the light."

Sora piped in confidently, "You'll find it. I'm searching, too."

"For your light?" Cloud inquired softly.

I smiled somewhat softly, somewhat sadly and exhaled in a short sigh while Sora nodded once, as both an an agreement to my emotions and and answer to Cloud's inquiry.

He nodded at that and walked up to Sora and me, reaching out with a hand and dropping something that glowed into Sora and my hands, "Don't lose sight of it."

Sora turned as he walked towards the coliseum and waved a hand, "How about a rematch sometime? Fair and square, no dark powers involved."

Cloud stopped and ran a hand through his hair, smirking, "I think I'll pass."

I looked at the item he dropped into my hand and saw it was a sphere of glowing blue light. I tilted my head and closed my hand around it, only for it to melt into nothingness in my hand. I stiffened as images of the lancing technique Cloud had used against us flooded into my mind. Sonic Blade. Everything was there; the mechanics of the energy input and footwork, how to focus it for the final strike of Blast, how many strikes it could be adapted to, and how we could continually improve it so long as we kept practicing at it. It was barely even a split-second but I knew that I could use it as though I had been using it all my life.

I turned to Sora and he was also shaking his head rapidly like a dog that was trying to shake off any wetness on it.

"Did you...?" I trailed off as I inquired.

He nodded, "Yeah, I know how to use Sonic Blade!"

I turned to give Cloud a very heartfelt thanks, but he had already vanished. Resigning myself - promising to thank him when I ran across him later - with a sigh, I looked away.

Hopefully it wouldn't be too long.

* * *

To be honest, the first thing I did when we got back to the gummi ship was lay down and catch a nap. I kicked off my shoes and shrugged out of my jacket and shirt. I had been awake and working for a while, and while potions and ethers could keep my body energized, my mind needed time to relax. I couldn't keep trucking on and on without some time to rest otherwise my thought processes and logic would begin to short circuit. When it came to fighting entities of darkness that had probably existed long before I'd been alive? I had to make sure I was at one-hundred percent as often as possible. Adrenaline could only do so much after all to keep me focus while on my feet. Now that I thought about it, it was straight from training in the coliseum to participating in the tournament to fighting Cerberus.

I sighed and closed my eyes.

I passed out almost immediately.

* * *

I woke to Goofy shaking my shoulder, "Niji? Time to get up."

I grumbled, "Quit it...Five more minutes..."

He let out a small chuckle but persisted, "Nope, we're getting to the next world."

I sighed and stretched as I reached out for my clothes before realizing something as I stared at my jacket which was streaked with dust from the coliseum and several tears that had been made when we had been fighting. I needed a shower as well.

To be frank, I probably needed new clothes.

"Hey Goofy?" I said as I slid my shoes on.

"Yeah?"

"Do we have a washing machine or something?" I asked, realizing that my clothes probably hadn't been washed in what must've been days, "I think my clothes are in desperate need of attention."

He blinked and turned to me, "I never told you about the slot for clothes?"

He turned and pointed at a panel in the wall that was a different color than the rest of the walls. He walked over and pulled it open to show a hatch that seemed to lead into the bowels of the ship.

"Throw them in and they'll come out in a bit." He instructed, "Good as new."

"I guess I have to wait until after this world, then I can enjoy fresh clothing again..." I sighed.

* * *

Walking up to the cockpit the first thing I head was Donald and Sora looking at the next world.

And the beginning of a heated argument

"The king in a backwater place like that?" The sorcerer scoffed, "Forget it! Let's just move on!"

"Riku and Kairi, could be there! Let's at least check it out!" Sora insisted.

"We're on an important mission!" Donald quacked.

"Just land!" Sora growled.

"No!"

"What's is going on?" I demanded, quickly interposing myself between Donald and Sora before the argument seemed to get to a boiling point.

Sora turned to me, frustration burning in his eyes, "I want to check out the next world to see if Riku and Kairi are on it! Donald wants to skip it because he doesn't think that the king is there!"

Donald also looked at me, "We have to find the king! We can't afford to waste time!"

I sighed and turned to Donald, "I get that Donald. Really, I do."

Sora opened his mouth, looking betrayed, but I sent him a sharp look to let me finish.

"But we are also looking our friends and need to find them." I said, pleading with the duck to get just how worried we were, "Please try to understand that Donald. I am not saying we aren't going to look for the king, but we can't just skip over worlds that might have our friends on it! I'm pretty sure the king is equipped to deal with any trouble, but none of our friends are! Besides, we should at least try to find this world's keyhole, right? Wouldn't the king rather the worlds be safer rather than skip over any world leaving it to be devoured by the heartless just because we were impatient?"

Donald did look conflicted at that, "But what if he needs our help? We don't even know that this world's keyhole is unsecured, it might be fine!"

I frowned, beginning to understand why Sora was getting mad, "What if our friends need ours?! I don't want to lessen how important your mission is, but you said we could look for our friends too! Besides, you don't know if the world's keyhole isn't fine!"

Sora had decided enough was enough though and walked over to the control panel and began pressing buttons that looked like they might get us to land, "We're landing, now!"

"Hey don't touch that!" Donald yelled.

I yelped in surprise as the ship listed and began to dive towards the planet while spinning. Despite floating in the free fall, Goofy managed to reach the control panel and slapped a hand down on a button.

Light filled the cockpit and there was the telltale sound of teleportation.

* * *

When the light had faded, I opened my eyes to find myself in free-fall.

I screamed as I fell from the sky towards what looked like a massive forest that was beneath me. I flailed wildly and saw Sora next to me as we spiraled towards the ground and tried to find a way to keep from crashing. Unfortunately, we didn't know anything that would help and crashed right through the roof of a large treehouse that was where we landed. We both sat there, groaning in pain as we tried to blink the stars from our eyes and figure out where we were.

"Ow... my head..." Sora groaned as he rubbed where he had hit his skull.

Fortunately, we weren't hurt too badly but I didn't want to take a chance with a new world, I summoned my keyblade, and weakly whispered, "Cure."

A soft green glow flashed over the two of us - soothing away the lingering aches - and we looked around as we felt better.

"Donald?" Sora said quietly, "Goofy?"

Just then there was a near silent creak followed by a loud roar from above and we both turned to see a leopard lunging at us from an upper balcony. We both threw ourselves sideways as it landed, snarling at the both of us as we materialized our keyblades. It lunged Sora and smacked him with a paw, sending him tumbling into the treehouse wall even with his keyblade held up in guard. It spun on its haunches and launched itself at me and I jabbed my keyblade and jumped back at it as the cat tried to clamp its jaws on my neck. It twisted around the attack and slid into me, knocking me on the floor as I frantically rolled away and swiped with keyblade, catching it in the chin and forcing it to hop back. It landed and made to chase after me, but two fireballs exploded on its skin and it tumbled to the side and it crashed into the wall.

Sora was on his feet and twirled his smoking keyblade in his hand before getting in his stance, "Payback sucks! Doesn't it?"

I smirked at him and struck with Zantetsuken just as the leopard straightened to its feet and made to dash at us once again. It yowled as it was sent sliding back after being struck squarely in the face. I leapt back and brandished my keyblade. While we put on a good front of being brave, I knew that I - personally - was more than a bit scared of this animal. The jungle cat's fangs were more than long enough to rip out a good chunk of meat it managed to bite us, and it's claws were razor sharp and could slice into us with very little difficulty. I may be a person with a keyblade, but it was only a single weapon and while it was an amazing weapon and I was stronger than I ever could have imagined with it...

I was still a relatively normal human and just as susceptible to what would kill someone as any other person.

The leopard left no more time to my musing as it snarled and leapt.

I waved my keyblade in a wide arc to fend off the rush and backed away in order to gain some room. I wasn't going to let this thing get too close. Apparently, Sora wasn't going to stay on the defensive and rushed in, swiping his keyblade at the overgrown cat. It spun and slashed at Sora, slapping the weapon away from its body with its claws. I rushed in to help but the cat twisted and leapt out of the way, landing with incredibly grace to face us snarling. I fired a sphere of flame at it, hoping to drive it away and discourage any further thoughts to attack. It leapt away, deftly dodging the fire as it landed a good three feet away and began to slowly slink around us teeth bared. We mirrored the movement, keyblades raised in case it decided to rush us and we had to defend ourselves. It snarled and dashed at us, it's claws slipping out from its paws and ready to slash. Sora and I dived apart and half-turned as we pointed our weapons and called out our spells.

"Fire!" I shouted.

"Thunder!" Sora called.

The fireball collided with the leopard sending it stumbling to the side only to be electrocuted by lightning raining down from the heavens. It yowled in pain and staggered away, eyes wide with fury and pain. Sora and I traded a glance and threw our keyblades in a synchronized Strike Raid, hitting the leopard and knocking it to the floor and hopefully knocking it out cold.

We carefully approached, not wanting to assume we were clear until we were at least out of the treehouse. We had barely moved within five feet when the leopard jolted up and tackled the both of us, sending us skidding back and onto our butts. I paled as its fury was almost palpable and raised my keyblade in a haphazard defense, I was sure it would leap on me and tear out my guts, but its eyes drifted to Sora who was watching in a horrified state of shock.

Sora blinked as he realized what the cat was doing and raised his keyblade in a hand, but the leopard was already lunging towards him.

Just then a blur of pink and brown landed in front of Sora and intercepted the cat. The blur turned out to be a person, or rather a wild-looking man. He had tangled brown hair in what seemed to be dreadlocks and was bare except for a ragged brown loincloth that was covering his modesty. He had caught the cat's jaws on a simple wooden spear that he was using and only struggled with a scowl on his face for a moment before he twisted and shoved his spear with a grunt of exertion sent the cat sliding away from Sora and towards the middle of the treehouse. The cat seemed to think that the odds were now bit too unfair and it simply hissed at us before it quickly darted away - crashing through a window - before the man could attack.

I sighed and the man looked over to us before he approached me and inspected me before going and doing the same to Sora.

"Sabor, danger." He said.

"Thanks for the help." I said, tilting my head at Sora.

Sora nodded, "Yeah, thank you."

"Thank you..." The man said slowly, as though testing the way it rolled off his tongue.

I blinked and decided to forge on, "Um... where is this place?"

"This place, this place." He said simply.

I turned to Sora with a helpless look and Sora shrugged and moved forward, "So...where are the others?"

The man stared blankly at us and I scratched the back of my head, before trying something that was probably stupid, "We. Look. For. Friends." I said, trying to use my hands to accentuate the actions.

"Right!" Sora followed my lead, "Friends. Riku. Kairi. Goofy... Donald."

I frowned as Sora seemed to hesitate to add the duck sorcerer, but I knew he was still upset with Donald. Heck I was still upset with how stubborn he had been, but Sora hadn't been any better, he just rushed to the controls while I decided to try to reason and not hit any buttons on a spaceship in space.

I sighed and ignored the hitch in his words as the man spoke, "Riku, Kairi, Goofy, Donald. Friends?"

I nodded eagerly, "Yes. Friends!"

I noticed Sora seemed to be shocked and was staring out the window as though he saw a ghost and I gently patted his shoulder, "Sora?"

He blinked and turned to me, "What?"

"You okay?"

He turned to the window and stared for a second before sighing, "Um... yeah. I'm good."

"Friends here." The man said.

We both turned to him, not bothering to hide our hopeful expressions.

"Really?" Sora inquired excitedly.

"Where?" I followed.

He let out a series of grunts like a monkey twice over before saying, "Friends here."

"Um..." I was a bit lost at that last part but continued, "Show us?"

"Tarzan." The man pointed at himself, "Tarzan go."

I nodded and pointed at myself, "Niji."

Sora repeated the gesture and said, "I'm Sora."


	12. Chapter 12

**All credit to respective owners!**

 **Reviews and (only) constructive criticism is loved!**

 **In this chapter Niji may seem a bit off, but he honestly feels as he says, and just doesn't like to admit it. He pretty emotional when he thinks about just how much he doesn't know and is prone to anger when he feels justified. He isn't quite as pure and forgiving as everyone who is on the side of good usually is in Kingdom Hearts.**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

As it turned out, traversing through the jungle wasn't to be done by walking on solid ground but by surfing across branches. And yes, that meant literally sliding through the branches with enough speed that if we crashed we could fall and break a neck if we crashed with no cushioning. Despite that very real danger, it was fun for it's speed and a rush from just how quickly the world was slipping by us as we slid through the foliage. I was able to keep up relatively well with Sora after a few stumbles and nearly falling off once or twice. But we both compared to Tarzan as a normal person on a swing set compared to a professional gymnast. At one point, we had to leap from branch to branch to go around a break in the trees that we wouldn't be able to cross in a leap, but that didn't hinder Tarzan in any way. The man launched himself towards the gap - so wide we though the would crash to the jungle floor - but instead his hand snapped out to reach a number of low-hanging vines and with a wild yell, he used his momentum to swing all the way across the gap in the trees that we had to shift around.

After a while we all got out of the forest to land in a camp where there was a large yellow tent pitched and a bunch of tables stacked with notes and books next to what seemed to be a small stove with a pot on top. In the farther corners of the camp were stacks of boxes that seemed to be full of provisions for a trip. However a lot of the items that were scattered around the site were not quite up to date, something which surprised me. Tarzan quickly made his way to the tent flap and sauntered in. Both of us shared a look and followed him in seeing a brown-haired woman in a dull white tank top and faded brown skirt fiddling with what seemed to be a projector.

"Jane." Tarzan said simply.

She turned, a bright smile tilting her lips as she saw Tarzan, "Tarzan!"

I relaxed slightly as at least one person spoke the same language.

"Ah, who are they?" Jane said as she peered at us curiously.

"Um, hi." Sora began, "I'm -"

"Oh, so you speak english!" She interrupted, looking a bit more than somewhat relieved at that, "So your obviously not related to Tarzan."

I blinked but pushed that aside to think on later, "That's right, we aren't. I'm Niji and this is my friend Sora."

"It's a pleasure to meet the both of you, you can call me Jane." Jane replied with a smile, "Are you here to study the gorillas?"

Before we could respond to that, a rather disdainful voice replied, "Highly doubtful."

We turned to see a tall man with neat albeit thin hair, a pencil thin mustache, yellow jacket with packets, tan pants, a red cloth stuffed around his neck into his jacket, a brown bandolier, a machete strapped to his waist, and a rifle held in his hands. If his face and tone was anything to go by, he was either immensely prideful or stuck-up. However the two people behind him were a much more pleasant surprise.

Donald and Goofy were following the man and both of them brightened upon seeing us.

"Niji, Sora!" Goofy greeted enthusiastically.

"Donald, Goofy!" Sora cheered and clasped hands with Donald before they both seemed to realize they were in a heated argument just a little while ago. They both turned away from each other with a huff in almost mirrored poses and expressions.

I looked between the two of them and let out a sigh at what I knew was going to be a issue that had to be settled before we left; the longer it lingered, the more the teamwork of our group would suffer. I locked eyes with Goofy who tilted his head at Sora. I shrugged and nodded before I tilted my head at Donald.

"A circus of clowns." The man scoffed as he walked out of the tent, "Not much use in hunting gorillas."

At that, Jane frowned and scolded, "Mister Clayton, we are studying them, not hunting them! This is research!"

Clayton didn't seem to hear her - or he didn't care enough to acknowledge her - and stalked off.

She shook her head with a sigh and turned to us, smiling again, "Well, the more the merrier. Do make yourselves at home."

I smiled, "Thank you. We really appreciate it."

"Well, anyway..." Sora and Donald said in unison, "I'm staying."

Sora turned to give the duck a surprised - and just the slightest bit hopeful - look, "Huh?"

Goofy stepped forward, holding something in his cupped hands, "Guys, we found something. Look at this."

He held up an orange cube with other bits of whatever the cube was made of sticking out of it.

"What is that?" Sora inquired.

"It's a gummi block." Goofy replied, "It the stuff our ship is made out of."

"So that means..." I began.

"The king could be here." Donald finished, he spared a glare to Sora and even a slight glance at me, "So we got to work together. For now."

I fought the urge to scowl at the duck, why the hell was he glaring at me. He had promised to help and even so I wasn't even the one who had crashed the ship!

"Fine." Sora grumbled, "I'll let you tag along. For now."

* * *

After a brief explanation as to Tarzan's linguistic barriers - which was because of his life in the jungle mainly consisting of being raised by gorillas and therefore never learning how to speak any english - Jane suggested that we look for slides that she could feed to the film projector and see if Tarzan could use them to point us in a direction that would help us find if our friends were here. I quickly seized the moment and advised Goofy - with a meaningful look - to go with Sora to check half the camp while Donald and I searched the other half for the slides. We headed out into the camp and began to walk to opposite sides to look for the cards.

I hadn't had a lot of time to really think on how I wanted to talk to Donald about why Sora and I were so frustrated. So I spent a minute of the time I was searching to think on what to say and make Donald at least try to see our problems. I settled on honesty and truths that all in all I didn't think I was personally ready to think about without breaking down. When I judged Goofy and Sora to be sufficiently far enough so that we wouldn't be over heard I turned to Donald who was looking through some boxes and studiously attempting to ignore everything else.

"Donald." I said, quelling the apprehensiveness I was feeling at the duck's attitude, "Can we talk a bit?"

He paused, and replied without looking up from his task, "What?"

I sighed, feeling my temper already begin to smolder again, "Donald, I meant face-to-face."

He sighed in resigned annoyance but turned to face me, "We have to find the King, he might need our help right now."

I nodded, at least we could get to the crux of the matter without having to force someone to admit it first.

"I know. Donald, Sora and I know exactly how much you want to find him, but Donald, don't you know we are just as desperate to find our friends too? You, Goofy, and the king have been friends for a long time, but so is Riku, Kairi, and all of our friends on the island." I paused and scrunched my eyes shut as I brought up the possibility that was something I didn't want to face because honestly it was too chilling to me, "I don't even know what happened to my parents, and that frustrates and terrifies me. Honestly Donald, I'm not sure what I will do if I find out that they didn't make it..."

God, what would I do if I never saw them again? I didn't even get to say goodbye to either of them before my entire world was gone. My eyes stung and I pressed a hand to my eyes to compose myself and keep the frustrated and grief down and stop tears in my eyes from welling over and falling.

Part of me wished I hadn't followed Sora.

That I simply stayed and let myself be lost to oblivion.

I pried open my eyes after a moment to look at the sorcerer, who was looking for all the world like he hadn't expected me to despair over what was going on.

And I hated crying in public because I always felt like I wasn't strong enough to grieve in silence when I did.

Donald didn't reply but I could see he was now feeling a bit guilty, he softly said "He's our best friend..."

"I know." I managed to choke out as I managed to push down my despair at the idea of my parents being lost, "Just like you would for your king, for my family and friends... I am willing to go anywhere - do anything - to just find any of them. Sora's quite literally my only friend left from the islands, and I know the chances to find anyone else are slim to none, but I just can't give up. I can't just keep going like this without knowing. Sora's just as desperate maybe even more-so than me, but he hasn't lost hope and won't let that possibility even occur to him."

Donald looked at Sora who seemed to be talking with Goofy while they were looking at a card, before weakly protesting, "He shouldn't have tried to land without knowing anything."

I sighed, "Can you blame him for want to at least check the world out? Can you blame me if I had done the same? We want to look everywhere we can, and you should too just in case. Sora and I... We promised to help you. I don't intend to go back on that, and I don't even need to tell you about Sora. His promises are absolute. But you said you'd help us too, right? If you were in our position, how would you have felt if we ignored your opinions? Besides, you said it yourself, the king might be here. You can't just dismiss things because of assumptions, I was always told that just makes an ass out of you and me."

I tried to end it on a joke to lighten the atmosphere but Donald still looked not quite so apologetic as much as he was contemplative and regretful.

That was more than enough for me to get the ball rolling.

My shoulders slumped in exhaustion - by god I just wasn't good at dwelling on the sadder topics and having to talk about them - but I gripped his shoulder, "Just think it over, okay? I don't want us to be angry and get mad with each other, we are all after the same thing, right?"

I squeezed his shoulder lightly and turned to earnestly begin looking for the cards myself.

* * *

We gathered the cards and I took the opportunity to study Sora, who was looking a bit melancholic as he glanced at Donald, who was looking much the same. We checked through all the cards, but stopped when we got to a castle that Sora shifted slightly at.

"Are you alright Sora?" Goofy inquired at the rather peculiar expression on Sora face.

"What? Oh, um I'm fine." He replied hurriedly, "It's just... that looks so familiar but I have never been to a place that wasn't on my island..."

I stared the image for a second but shrugged, "I don't know anything about it."

We ran through all the slides but Tarzan didn't give much of a reaction to any of them.

"Well, Tarzan?" Jane asked the man.

"Where are my friends, Riku and Kairi?" Sora inquired, a hint of desperation in his tone.

Tarzan turned to Sora and after a long moment, shook his head.

I saw Sora look a bit more than unhappy at , "Hey, I thought-"

"That just leaves one place." Clayton's voice came from behind us startling us and making us whirl to face him, "Young man, we've been in this jungle for a long time now, but we've yet to see your friends. I'd wager that they're with the gorillas. However, Tarzan refuses to take us to them."

I immediately shifted uneasily when I saw the gleam in his eyes, this guy just rubbed me the wrong way from his first interaction. Even if he didn't just radiate a certain sense of superiority and pridefulness, the way he acted and how he scoffed at Donald and Goofy, ignored Jane's scolding, and insulted us was more than enough to make me want to keep this guy as far away from me as possible.

"Really, Mr. Clayton. Tarzan wouldn't hide -" Jane began.

"Then take us there. Take us to the gorillas. Go-rill-as." Clayton cut her off, leaning towards Tarzan.

Tarzan stared at us for a long moment, and nodded.

Jane looked a bit worried, "Tarzan...are you sure?"

"Tarzan go see Kerchak." Tarzan replied.

"Kerchak?" Jane replied, confused.

"He must be the leader. Perfect!" Clayton said, almost gleefully, "I'll go along as an escort. After all, the jungle is a dangerous place."

I stared at him and decided to cut in as I saw his wide smile.

"Actually, that won't be necessary." I said, giving him a narrow-eyed look that wasn't quite a glare, "We can handle ourselves just fine without you and we already have an escort I much prefer over you, to be frank."

He turned and glared at me, "And who would that be, child?"

I internally bristled at him calling me a child, but smirked at him, "We have Tarzan, and frankly Clayton? I'd rather have him lead us there than you. He knows the way, and the safest possible route, besides he can actually communicate with them. Those three things already trump anything you could possibly do for us in regards to the gorillas."

* * *

Clayton had been less than pleased at my assertion that we didn't need him, but rather than get in a shouting match, he simply stalked off in a huff, claiming, "I'll find them before you every could!"

Sora looked at me oddly as we followed Tarzan's lead, "Did you really need to say all that to him? It's not like you to act like that towards someone for no reason."

I shook my head, "Honestly? No. But I did have a reason, even if it wasn't clear. I don't know if you got a good look at the guy, but just from what I see? He's obsessed with the gorillas, and frankly I don't think it's for making friends. Besides that everything else I said were all very valid points. Tarzan is a better guide, and we all have a way of handling danger."

Sora seemed to mull over that, "I know... but we need all the help we can get."

"Sora." I sighed, "I want to find everyone. Don't doubt that, but I think there is definitely some help we could go without. Clayton is that sort of help, if we want the gorillas to lend a hand, I don't think having him there will make it easier in any capacity."

We left it at that as Tarzan scampered quickly up a tree and motion for us to follow. We climbed after him as best we could, trying not to fall off. When we got high enough up, he grabbed a vine and slowly swung across them, letting us follow him by running along the branches. When we finally made it to a part of the forest, we saw Tarzan land on a branch in front of a massive black gorilla and smaller brown one. The large one looked strong enough to uproot a tree and swing it like a baseball bat.

Tarzan conversed with them for a moment, gesturing towards himself and us as Kerchak listened.

There was silence before Kerchak turned and looked off. He gave us a final glance and lumbered off into the forest, uncaring of Tarzan trying to ask him something.

We watched the conversation when Goofy spoke up, "He seemed kinda distracted..."

"Wait a minute..." I mumbled, "Sora... Isn't that the tree house?"

I looked through the foliage as best as I could and saw in the far distance, the tree house, which was where Kerchak had lumbered off to. Tarzan seemed to notice and began to leap forward, dashing through the trees almost too fast to follow.

"Come on!" Sora hollered and we began to follow as best we could.

We arrived in the tree house just in time to see a horrible scene, a small ape was spinning a globe that was left in the tree house.

Clayton was kneeling, aiming his gun in what we knew would be an undoubtedly fatal shot.

Donald however didn't hesitate and rushed right next to the hunter before letting out an enraged squawk that startled the hunter in time for him to miss and hit the ground. The small ape dashed up only to hide behind the intimidating form of Kerchak. We all stared in despair as the large ape scowled with his teeth before lumbering off. Tarzan made to appeal to him, but was ignored once again.

"Clayton... you utter idiot!" I howled at the hunter.

* * *

It was a frustrated and disheartened group that half-led, half-marched the grumbling and sulky hunter back to the camp. After explaining the situation to Jane, I got a reminder as to why I feared my mom more than the heartless when she was in one of her... moods.

Jane was furious, to the point that is she had magic, she would probably be hurling fire at the idiot hunter (I wasn't going to call Clayton by anything from here on in).

"How could you do such a thing?!" She demanded, her voice raised in unmistakable fury.

"Now, Miss Porter," He tried to say, gesturing with his hands, "I wasn't aiming at the gorilla! There was a.. ah! There was a snake! And I was simply attempting to save the poor gorilla from being bitten!"

"Liar!" Sora accused, "There was no snake at all!"

We all glared at him.

"Do you think we are idiots?" I growled, "Only an idiot such as yourself would believe you!"

He scowled at me, "Silence, you impudent-"

Jane had already had enough of Clayton and shouted with a tone that brooked no room for argument, "You are not to go near the gorillas ever again Mister Clayton!"

Clayton knew when a argument was lost and decided that he should beat a hasty retreat under the united front we presented against him.

That didn't stop him from flashing us all scowls as he left.

I sighed and rubbed a tired hand through my hair, "Well? Now what do we do?"

We all thought on what we could do when a loud gunshot rang through the air. We exchanged panicked looks before dashing outside only to pull up short at the sight that greeted us.

"Heartless!" Donald yelled.


	13. Chapter 13

**Ah man I am just pumping out chapters! At least if this note is still relevant by the time this chapter is up...**

 **Reviews and (only) constructive criticism is loved!**

 **All credit to respective owners and the like!**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

Unfortunately, Donald was definitely correct in his observation of the creatures that were now scampering around in the camp. Looking like monkeys, they were covered in blue fur, which appeared to be lighter around their head and torso, and darker around their arms, legs and long tails. The center part of their face was pitch-black with jagged edges, and two glowing, yellow eyes could be seen. The inner sections of their round ears were a light purple color, as were their large paws and feet, which ended with sharp, black claws. They seemed to be wearing golden bracelets and anklets and sported a heartless insignia which was clear on their chests. The most worrisome point was that they seemed to be perfectly suited for the jungle and several heartless were surrounding a gorilla that seemed to be terrified and unable to escape the ring of heartless around it. We all quickly summoned our weapons and rushed at the heartless, intent on destroying them. Tarzan rushed in, swinging his spear in wide circles while yelling, smacking the heartless away from the gorilla. We all began to focus on different heartless as Tarzan stabbed one and it exploded into darkness.

I rushed one of them that had been on its back and brought Abaddon Plasma down to destroy it, but the monkey instead rolled to the side and roughly kicked me with one of its feet, knocking me to the ground. I rolled with the blow and saw the monkey heartless leap away from where I had been standing and land on top of the boxes that had been stacked in the middle of the camp. I scrambled to my feet and leapt after the heartless, carefully watching its movements. It was a far cry in style from the shadows, lanterns, and soldiers that we had been fighting up till now.

The thought I had of heartless changing to a more suited form for each world was absolutely correct as the monkey heartless was agile and able to leap much higher and scrambling around with almost astonishing speed. It seemed to favor swinging around the pole in the middle of the camp or nearby bamboo stalks to apply more force as it slid at me or to leap higher into the air and come down with a flurry of swipes. I jumped away as it came down and planted its fist in fist through the crate where I was. I grinned victoriously as it was now trapped; I lunged and brought Abbadon Plasma down on its head. As it evaporated, I sighed and straightened as everybody dealt with their respective foes seconds after I had disposed of mine.

Unfortunately, they weren't the only attackers, two monkeys - their fur now was in shades of pink, the bow a bright sunny yellow, with a choker that was a dark blue, with black paws materialized into existence and wielded rudimentary slingshots. I ducked away from a hail of what seemed to be bolts that were shaped like seeds. The rest of us didn't seem to have too much trouble though - with five of us - as we were able to surround them and take them out quickly. With a small pause to wait to see what might come, we all slowly decompressed as we judged the small skirmish to be over.

I turned to Sora to see he was looking at the keyblade in my hand.

"Hey Niji..." He began, "What's with that keyblade your using? What happened to your old one, I wasn't really paying attention but I thought while we were at the coliseum and the tree house that you were using this new one. I was going to ask earlier but I forgot with all that's been going on."

I looked down at the keyblade in my hand and shrugged before hopping off the crates, "I was just relieved that I was still using a keyblade, I wasn't going to make a big deal over what it looked like, but I had a weird dream and the next thing I knew, when I tried to call 'Starlight', I was holding this one called 'Abaddon Plasma' instead."

Sora seemed a bit unsure as to what to make of that but was approached by the gorilla before it placed something in its hand before loping away into the trees. Sora looked at the gummi block that was in his hand, unlike the one we had found in Wonderland, it wasn't quite so complex and looked more like the one Goofy and Donald had stumbled across earlier. I shot an inquisitive look with Donald but he gave me a 'i-don't-know' shrug back. I stared hard in the direction of where the gorilla had left, mind racing. After traversing the jungle for as long as we had, the heartless hadn't showed up at all, even with two keyblade wielders both being in the world. I was beginning to think that maybe we didn't need to worry about any heartless right up till now.

But if they were suddenly here...

What brought them here?

"If the heartless are here," I began, "We need to clear them out, I don't know if they will be able to take animal hearts, but I don't want to risk it."

Goofy nodded, "We may not be able ta get everywhere but it'd be a good idea to see where we can help."

With that we began going through the forest, we encountered more of the heartless cornering gorillas and closing in on them. We didn't hesitate to give as good as we could when it came to destroying them. It wasn't easy to fight them as our first encounter since the monkey heartless were perfectly suited for the terrain and we - with the exception of Tarzan - were not quite at home with the jungle setting. If there was any sort of silver lining to the situation that we had on our hands, it was the fact that Donald and Sora were forced to stick close and help each other. With every battle we engaged in, our teamwork and attacks got better and better, getting us situated better on the uneven terrain.

Sora knocked several heartless away from Donald's back before they could rush him. Donald turned to give him a quick nod of thanks.

Sora was about to smile back when he was almost buried under three heartless that landed on him when Donald cut in with a furious cry of, "Fira!"

A large waved of fire burned the heartless into oblivion and Sora sat up and sighed in relief.

"Thanks you Donald." He said with a slightly awkward smile.

"Your welcome." He replied just as awkwardly.

I hid a smile at the two, 'Definitely close, they just need to agree on an apology...' I internally sighed in relief.

With every area cleared, the gorillas that we saved would would give us all a gummi block in thanks. Honestly I was worried for Clayton - as much of an ass as he was - he was still someone who we could save, and I may not have liked it, but I was going to save everyone I could. We finally managed to clear most of the areas before we got to the clearing in the bamboo thicket that Donald and Goofy had been found in. We walked around before Goofy saw Clayton's smoking pipe laying innocently on a rock in the middle of the clearing. I picked it up and twisted it around, seeing if there was any sights of recent use.

I shook my head and placed it back down on the rock we found it, "It's cold and unlit, why would he leave it here?"

Just then the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge, making me stiffen. I turned in alarm at the sound of a familiar growl.

Sabor the leopard leapt from the bamboo thicket that surrounded us and pounced on Sora, bearing down on him with all of his weight. Sora let out a cry of alarm as he desperately tried to push the feline off of him. Goofy scowled and used his shield to bash the the cat in the side with his shield, sent the cat down and off of Sora. Tarzan, Donald, and I all stood to block the cat from our friends.

"Sabor!" Tarzan growled angrily at the leopard.

"You better run this time, or else I am going to kill you myself!" I yelled at the jungle cat, "Back off!"

The leopard only roared at our challenge and crouched low, body as tense as a taut bowstring. It lunged at us with single-minded intensity as Tarzan held his spread in a guard position to catch the charge. He grunted as the leopard pushed him back two feet from sheer force. I swung my keyblade in a wide side-swing to hit it but the leopard seemed to have a better idea of how to fight with us and disengaged from Tarzan to slip to the side and away from the blow. However it was still as stupid when it came to magic despite being struck by it before.

Donald raised his staff and called out, "Blizzard!"

Several bolts of ice shot from the tip of his staff and some struck Sabor in the side. The cat let out a yowl at the chilling feeling of the ice now crawling along its body. Sora didn't hesitate to pay the cat back for its previous assault and knocked it away with a heavy Slapshot. The cat landed on its side and rolled to its feet only to bet meet with a shield to the face, courtesy of Goofy. We had beaten it pretty thoroughly when it was only me and Sora, in the face of all of us, it just wasn't able to keep up with our onslaught. It was on its last legs when Tarzan finally lunged forward, spear glinting like a star in the sunlight of the clearing.

With a final attack, Sabor fell to the floor, slain.

We barely had a moment to relax after the battle when a terrified scream of a woman cut through the general sounds of the jungle. We traded panicked looks and raced back to the tent, knowing that only person who could be that close for us to hear a scream. When we got to the camp, our hearts fell as we saw heartless scampering about the camp in a large number and several of the instruments knocked over as well as the tea table in splinters. With a war cry, I charged the heartless, keyblade gripped in hand. We began to beat the wave of heartless down while Tarzan dashed into the tent to see if Jane was alright. When we managed to destroy the last of the heartless and joined Tarzan only to see that the projector had been knocked over and the floor had been roughly tugged, as though someone had struggled to stay in while someone had dragged them out.

"Damn..." I snarled, "Did the heartless get her?"

Tarzan shook his head and loped outside to point in the direction Sora and I had first come to the camp in, "Jane, danger. Jane near... treehouse."

"Lets find her!" Sora yelled as he began to run in the direction of the vines that we could climb to get to the tree house.

We all anxiously followed suit, hoping we weren't too late.

* * *

As it turned out the heartless had Terk - the gorilla that Donald had saved and Tarzan's friend - and Jane trapped behind a bunch of black vines that radiated the feel of darkness in one of the heavily forested areas. Also there seemed to be a giant black fruit - with a nearly choking miasma of darkness - growing from the tree that had black vines spreading from it and leading to the cage that held Jane and Terk. Heartless bounded around the fruit, and turned to face us the moment we entered, beady yellow eyed staring. One lunged at us and I summoned my keyblade just in time to block a heavy punch that would've definitely hurt me. I pushed against the force and with a shout of effort, threw the heartless on my keyblade to hit the wall. I quickly analyzed the situation and began to call out directions.

"Hit the fruit!" I yelled, adding a bit of basic wording for Tarzan, "Sora, Donald! You two attack the fruit! Fight! Goofy and Tarzan! Defend Sora and Donald! Protect!"

The main reason I called out the grouping as they were was for that fact that we didn't know if the fruit had defenses against magic or physical attacks. Sora and Donald could cover for each other's techniques if one failed. Tarzan might have had a more physical weapon, but he was much more suited for the monkeys style of fighting and blocking any that would attack; Goofy had his shield, so he would be more suited for that task than I was. I was hoping to beat some of heartless away so I could take some pressure off of Tarzan and Goofy.

With that we all moved onto our respective tasks, hoping for the best.

The tactics worked well although it took a bit more effort than preferred, Tarzan moved with remarkable dexterity in keeping the monkeys from using the higher ground to get the drop on Sora or Donald. Goofy and I - on the other hand - kept the ones that tried to used the lower level to attack Sora or Donald too busy. It wasn't too easy as Tarzan was the only one able to consistently guard them from up top and Goofy and I were only able to keep a certain number of them away from the walls and on the ground. However Sora and Donald weren't holding much back in their assault on the black fruit as they launched a powerful offensive. Donald was casting Fira and occasionally Thundara to help thin out the heartless when he felt it was a bit too much while Sora was whaling on the fruit with Hurricane Periods and the occasional Strike Raid.

In short order, the fruit dissolved in a cloud of black vapor and the black vines immediately began to crumble and wither. The heartless paused when the fruit was destroyed ad began to leave in portals of darkness.

Jane was holding a distraught Terk as she explained that Clayton entering the tent was the last thing she remembered.

"Clayton?" We chorused in confusion.

She nodded, "Terk had come rushing into the tent."

Terk let out a couple of grunts, and Tarzan immediately stiffened, "Danger! Kerchak, family, danger!"

"We have to help the gorillas!" Jane said firmly.

We didn't have any trouble doing that, as far as we were concerned, Tarzan needed help to save his family, and he was a friend. We all began to race through the forest in hopes that we would be able to reach the Gorillas before it was too late. When we got there, Kerchak was roaring and beating his chest, trying to intimidate the heartless that were in front of him to back off. What stunned us however, was that Clayton was standing with them, face blank and raising his rifle to shoot the gorillas. We landed and I immediately moved to grab the gun and push it away. However, the moment I touched the stock of the gun, Clayton swung at his gun with unnatural strength and almost clubbed me upside the before I threw myself under and away from the strike. I let out a grunt as I managed to turn my roll into a crouch. I managed to summon Abaddon Plasma and got into my stance, hiding my surprised anger(and slight bit of unnerved fear).

"You idiot hunter," I growled, "what the hell are you doing?"

"Not Clayton!" Tarzan warned before he let out a series of worried grunts and repeated, "Not Clayton!"

As if in response, Clayton let out an angry yell as he raised his rifle and squeezed off a shot at Tarzan, who ducked and rolled away. I saw the Gorillas were beginning to back away from the encounter and run into the trees, which was a relief, we couldn't afford to be distracted by trying to defend the Gorillas as well as dodge bullets. Sora, Donald, and Goofy all attacked at once, pelting the hunter with light attacks - trying to knock him out and not kill him - but similarly to Cloud, he seemed to shrug off the blows. Sora brought his keyblade down in a over hand, but Clayton parried with unnatural grace, raising the shaft of his weapon against the attack. He twisted and pushed Sora off the weapon and held it out with one hand, aimed right at Sora's face.

Sora eyes widened as he ducked instantaneously as the bullet in the chamber shaved a few hairs from his head.

Donald howled in fury at the hunter nearly killing Sora and blasted him away with a cry of "FIRA!"

The hunter was sent flying and crashed into the rocks at the side, before beginning to rise again. He had burns now decorating his body and his clothes had blackened as the flames had eaten at them.

"Guys!" I yelled, "Don't hold back! I don't know what happened, but he's trying to kill us! Something isn't right!"

I no sooner had said that than the wall behind me exploded outward and something hit me and sent me sliding face-first to the ground before I felt three things wrap around me and throw me even further away. I hit the wall and crumpled to the floor, groaning in pain. I blearily saw Tarzan rush at Clayton but get knocked back as though something had hit him.

"Cure!" Sora yelled, fury pulsating in his voice.

I felt the pain fade and I pushed myself to my feet as I leapt away to see exactly what was going on.

Clayton was sitting on thin air, reloading his rifle with bullets.

'No...' I thought as the air beneath Clayton warped slightly as though some clear haze was interfering with my sight, 'There is something there... we just can't see it!'

"What?" Sora gaped.

"There's gotta be a heartless there!" I growled, "It's probably using some sort of camouflage!"

The invisible heartless let out a chittering noise and the battle began in earnest.


	14. Chapter 14

**I hope this chapter is well received! I stumbled quite a bit over some of the writing in it...**

 ***exhausted sigh***

 **Reviews are loved.**

 **All credit to respective owners.**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

I growled in frustration as I dove out of the way of another bullet.

The fight wasn't going quite as well as I would have hoped.

And by well, I meant violently strangle the idiot hunter for once again trying to kill the gorillas and destroy the heartless in the area while at it.

The problem was that were had already been hit a more than fair few times by the heartless, the fact that it smashed through a straight stone wall to get to us made it clear that we had to steer clear unless we wanted to be hit by the equivalent of a wrecking ball. How were we supposed to do that if we could see the damn thing was the problem. We had a vague idea as to where it was thanks to Clayton riding it and the slight distortion as it moved, but that didn't mean we could see it's swings or attacks with enough clarity to fully dodge.

What made matters worse was well... Clayton.

Yeah, we could doge his bullets provided we kept an eye on him, but he wasn't letting us have enough of a chance to mount a decent attack and focusing on him AND the heartless was a bit much. He kept firing on anyone who was gathering magic to keep us from firing spells, and the heartless was chasing us around the area, which was a bit too constricted for us to gain any significant amount of distance. Swinging blindly when he seem to loom close enough was getting old because our current percent of actual hits on the heartless was about 50%.

He couldn't have completely cut us off from attacking him with a well-timed thunder or ice bolt, but whatever the heartless did to him made him a hell of a lot more durable than before.

"We need to separate them, or at least knock Clayton out!" I grumbled to Sora, who was smudged with dirt from face-planting or diving to the ground to avoid the bullets and had scratches on his face from when the heartless sent him sprawling across the floor. The hunter was currently facing Goofy who was covering Donald as best as he could.

"Any ideas?" He panted as we saw Clayton's view shift over to us.

"Cast thunder together?" I offered.

We shared a look and raised out keyblades, Clayton made to shoot us but his chamber was thankfully empty and he hadn't noticed.

He did have to keep track of three people capable of using magic all the while keeping his balance on a creature we couldn't see.

"Thunder!" We cried in unison, playing a gamble on the way the spell worked and hoping more than a single bolt would hit them.

The only magic that scored dependable hits were freeze and thunder thanks to their widespread nature, and while fire was no doubt a powerful spell in its own right, it relied on all the fireballs being concentrated for the full dose of damage. We had also been trying to conserve our magic for cure - as the thing hit like a truck - but I had enough of being a punching bag. We couldn't focus our spells because concentrating them would only make them that much easier to miss, so I had to hope for the best.

Lightning lanced down from the heavens and landed Clayton and the heartless he was riding. He let out a pained yell and the heartless let out a loud chittering cry of pain.

And like I hoped, the crackle of lightning outlined the shape of what seemed to be a bipedal creature of sorts.

'Yes!' I thought triumphantly.

"Keep blasting it!" I shouted, "Let's hit it with as much damage as we can while it's visible!"

Donald began chanting his more powerful spells - aiming at where the giant heartless was cringing - while Sora and I called down more lightning to hit the heartless and hunter, keeping it visible and in pain. It began to cry out in agony (I hoped) from the onslaught of spells and began to flail wildly, causing Clayton to curse and try to grab a better hold.

"Come on, Beast!" He yelled angrily.

Despite the fact that we felt the strain of repeated casting become more than a bit noticeable, we didn't let up on casting the magic and finally the heartless began to shiver become visible. It turned out to be a giant green lizard - greatly resembling a chameleon - that was had filigree black lines that seemed to be tattooed onto its skin, wide yellow and orange-ringed eyes, and a heartless symbol emblazoned on its chest. Its wild flailing finally forced Clayton off of its back and towards the corner of the fight. He was looking a lot more worse for wear and - in a stroke of luck - it seemed that one of Donald's fire spells had managed to melt his rifle's barrel shut. I let out a sharp exhale at the exhaustion and discomfort that was brought on by the heavy usage and subsequent depletion on my magic reserves, but twirled my keyblade in my hand as I got into my stance.

"You guys can take the heartless." I growled, pulling out an ether and chugging it down, "The idiot hunter is mine."

Sora gave me a worried look - probably from the sheer venom in my voice - but had to focus as the heartless began to stir from its temporary stupor and turned toward us. Clayton stared blankly at his gun before dropping it and drawing his machete, fixing his eyes on me.

I tensed - ready to start fighting - but suddenly Tarzan was beside me, his spear at the ready. Clayton only paused to give him a angry look before he raised his machete.

Tarzan gave me a look that clearly said, 'This is my fight.'

I sighed in resignation but backed off, if Tarzan wanted to fight Clayton, he had more right that I could ever hope to have. Clayton attacked his family, friends, and - even I could tell - someone he cared for in a very different way but no less intense way than family. I made to turn to the heartless that Sora, Donald, and Goofy were attacking when more of the monkey heartless materialized to a wave of Clayton's hands. I let out a growl of frustration as Clayton smirked, this jerk wanted me to stay and fight.

Well...

If he wanted that, who was I to argue?

I leapt at the heartless, swiping my keyblade to drive them off while Tarzan and Clayton began to attack each other. In all honesty, Clayton was outmatched when it came to agility and speed, but his recent displays of power made me doubt if Tarzan could beat him as easily as I initially thought. He had shrugged off spells that - quite frankly - would have made me dive for cover, and to make matters worse, he didn't even seem to register the pain beyond being knocked back. I knocked one heartless down with my keyblade and grabbed another by its wrist to fling it into another; I immediately raised my keyblade to block a synchronized kick that two launched at me. I slid back and let out a shout as I swiped my keyblade out to launch the two away from me, they landed on their feet and began to hop and skip around me.

"It'll take too long to take them out one by one..." I muttered, eyes glancing to see Tarzan pushing against Clayton with his spear.

I ducked away form a heartless trying to tackle me and backpedaled.

I lifted my keyblade into a stance that Cloud had used against us, muttering, "Nothing quite like a live-fire test..."

Light gathered around my keyblade and began to surround me.

"Sonic Blade!" I yelled.

It was indescribable to use the first attack, I shot forward but could still perceive my opponent's positions clearly as though everything had slowed down and I was moving normally. I cut right through one heartless that exploded into a cloud of shadow and began to dash through the rest of the group of heartless as they were destroyed or blasted away with a single stab of my keyblade. The light of my keybade was constantly waning and waxing, forcing my to retrace my steps to attack, but I managed to get them all. I skidded to a stop - the light around me beginning to fade away - and grunted at the drag on my energy. It also wasn't perfectly stable as an attack as it was hard to keep it consistent in energy and distance. I suddenly heard a grunt and whirled to see Tarzan fall back from Clayton who appeared to have punched him. Clayton made to chop Tarzan in half but I dashed in between the two to catch the strike of his machete on my keyblade. I grunted at just how heavy the strike was but with a shout, pushed him off and sent him stumbling back as I got in my stance.

"What's wrong idiot?" I taunted, moving so Tarzan wasn't near either of our immediate ranges to fight, "Don't tell me your not a good enough hunter to take on some kids?"

With a roar of anger, Clayton charged, machete raised to strike a fatal blow; I shifted to the side and backpedaled to get out of range of the blade. I blinked as his machete bit into the stone floor all the way to the hilt (that as solid rock). Of course he'd also be stronger than normal now that he was being powered by the darkness or the heartless (whichever, I didn't care enough to specify). I had to make sure that I didn't underestimate him at any point in the future if I didn't want to end up disemboweled by him. He followed me and swung wildly, the steel of his weapon flashing in the sun as he tried to cut me to pieces. Focusing on defense, I blocked and dodged his attacks to see his style of attack.

I realized how he fought and smirked.

for all that he was relentless in his assault, he wasn't skilled in sword fighting and therefore he was much easier to deal with. He was hacking with choppy and unrefined moments that were probably more suited for hacking through a bush than killing someone. I sidestepped a chop and lashed out with my keyblade, smacking him solidly in the chest and sending him sliding back. He landed on his back but I wasn't going to go easy on him, he tried to kill me and my friends. Beating him into unconsciousness was very, very kind compared to what I wanted to do to this idiot.

I aimed at him, holding out my free hand and roared, "Deep freeze!"

Several bolts of ice erupted from my hand and froze Clayton's body to the wall of the clearing. He grunted and began to twist his torso in an attempt to force himself free of the ice that kept him stuck in one place. I spared a quick glance to see if my friends were dealing with the heartless easier now, and judging by the way they weaved around the heartless and were now able to dodge its blows, they were doing much better. Donald was hammering the lizard with magic while Sora and Goofy pummeled it with their respective weapons when it made to approach the mage. I decided to ditch the hunter since he seemed unable to free himself at the moment and ran into the fray; I lashed out with a strike raid that knocked the heartless' head to the side before it could head-butt Sora who had raised his keyblade in defense.

He smiled when he saw me running over and leapt away from the heartless trying to pancake him into the floor and quickly asked, "Where's Clayton?"

"He's on time out in some ice!" I grunted as batted away a heavy fist to the side with my keyblade.

The chameleon heartless seemed to be angry that it had another opponent to deal with and attacked by leaping into the air to come down on where we were standing. It was quick and agile, but now that it had lost the advantage of its camouflage, we didn't have to worry about unexpected attacks that we couldn't see coming. The heartless seemed to be angrier and angrier as we scurried around it and kept damaging it when it had no way to retaliate; I let out a chittering cry and began to rise on its hind legs to fire spiraling bursts of energy from its eyes. I leapt away from one blast and spun away from a swipe from its hands. It would have followed up had Sora not leapt from beside it and used hurricane period to draw its attention away. It swayed drunkenly and Donald capitalized on its dazed state to attack.

"THUNDAGA!" He cried.

Huge bolts of electricity came down and blasted the heartless and it cried out in pain before slumping to the ground and laying motionless except for the occasional twitch. We waited for it to evaporate but it simply lay there as though it had been knocked unconscious.

"Why won't it die?" I said in a sharp exhalation.

Sora looked just as confused as I felt at the moment.

I looked away as there was a loud cracking sound from behind me.

"Keep hitting the heartless!" I called as I ran towards the trapped hunter, "I'll take Clayton down!"

Even as my ice began to crackle and give, I wasn't worried; I had fully expected Clayton to suddenly have enough strength to eventually free himself from the magically conjured ice.

I only used the spell to hold him while I aided my friends; I closed the distance between us while I gathered my focus and roared again, "Sonic Blade!"

I took a step forward - Abaddon Plasma glimmering like a miniature sun as energy wrapped around us both - and instead of simply moving forward, I lanced through the air, shattering the ice holding him and blasting Clayton away. I pivoted on my foot as I landed and turned until I was facing Clayton again, blade and body still radiating light. I didn't let up and began to lance around at a blinding speed, uncaring for how much damage I was dealing; I kept knocking Clayton around like a ragdoll until I blasted him with the last strike and he flew towards the heartless' battle. The heartless was far more hurt now that it was immobile and had been unable to defend itself, it sported several burns and parts of its body were sparking and what wasn't burned had ice crawling across the skin, testaments to the fact that it had been liberally electrocuted, frozen, and burned multiple times. Its body began to tremble and spark with light as it slowly rose. Just then, Clayton eyes began to gain awareness again - clearing of the glazed look - but instead of stopping his attack, his hand jammed the machete he had been using in his belt and Clayton instinctively reached for where he usually holstered his rifle.

When he grasped nothing but air, he turned to us - subsequently spotting the melted hunk of metal that may have once resembled a rifle - violence was radiating from every line of his face. Unfortunately for him, he didn't notice as the overgrown newt of a heartless let out a dying wail and began to fall, right on top of Clayton. He whirled to see the creature's fall and let out a cry of fear, but we weren't fast enough to pull him out of the way as the heartless crushed him under its weight. We watched as Clayton's lifeless body and the heartless' body both began to evaporate into black vapor and a heart floated free into the air.

And that was the first person I saw really die in front of me.

For a moment I forgot how to breathe, seeing Clayton's lifeless eyes stare at something beyond our perception as he lay under the bulk of the dead heartless on replay in my head. I forced myself to calm down and took a shaky breath as Sora had closed his eyes and had a pained expression on his face. As we dismissed our weapons, we all let out a tired sigh and I promptly slumped forward - nearly collapsing to all fours - resting my arms on my knees and panting heavily as sweat dripped from my face; I hadn't realized that using Sonic Blade twice as I did so soon - one after another - would tire me out so thoroughly.

"Niji?!" Sora cried as he rushed over to see if I needed help.

Apparently learning about the skill left out the physical strain it would put me through if I used it; I made a mental note to practice that attack to lessen the strain and keep the energy used at a constant level when I had some free time.

"Just strained myself a bit," I grunted, "Lend me a shoulder?"

Sora immediately helped me keep upright and I flashed him a thankful - albeit tired - smile as I pulled out a potion and downed it in a few gulps. I sighed at the refreshing feeling of my physical exhaustion melting away and pushed myself to my feet. My reserves of magic needed some time but weren't completely wiped out, so I could hold off on that ether for now as they built back up naturally.

"You okay now?" Sora inquired again, wiping at the sweat he had accumulated over his own battle.

"Yeah," I grunted, mentally prodding at my reserves as though trying to accelerate their restoration, "I just pushed myself a bit too hard with Sonic Blade. I should've stuck with regular attacks rather than try it out for the first time in a battle; I wasn't prepared for the strain, knowing how something is done doesn't necessarily mean I can use it as well as Cloud can mid-battle. I over estimated how well I had learned it..."

Sora accepted my explanation and we turned when all heard the sound of something lumbering towards us. We turned to see Kerchak approach us and simply stare at us for a moment, staring at us with that unreadable look he gave us before the treehouse incident. I blinked and in a flash he gripped Sora's hood and my collar before bodily throwing us into the air, through the hole the lizard heartless had smashed through when it first appeared. I landed on my stomach and the breath whooshed out of my lungs from the unexpected impact. There were two loud thumps from next to us and we saw both Donald and Goofy both looking a bit dazed like I had when I landed. Tarzan scurried up the vines and moss leading to this low cliff and we straightened to see Kerchak give Tarzan a look before the ape lumbered off into the forest, the gorillas following.

"Tarzan, home." Tarzan said quietly as he moved past us.

We turned and the sight took my breath away.

It was beautiful.

There was a sparkling and clear lake that had rumbling and rushing waterfalls that were cascading down from a cliff to pour into the water in a spray of mist. The sun's reflection glittered like stars on the surface of the water and for a moment all I could do was stare in awe at the sight.

Then Tarzan looked at a cave that was to our left and began to lope towards it, giving us a motion to follow.

I gave one last look at the beautiful sight - burning the beauty of it into my mind - before following.

* * *

Tarzan led us through a small network of ledges that allowed us to climb up the cave that ran behind the waterfalls. After a small bit of scaling the walls and climbing some moss growing on the walls,Tarzan led us to another cave that led presumably deeper into the caves. However when we finally got to the end we found a cool and enclosed area where a number of glowing blue butterflies had congregated on the trunk of a tree that was in front of us. Jane and Terk had apparently managed to follow us up - albeit more slowly due to the fact that Jane wasn't quite as athletic as we were and needed Terk's help several times - to this hidden area.

Tarzan let out a string of grunts and Sora blinked, "Wait this is your home? But that means..."

Tarzan closed his eyes, one of his hands cupping his ears. We all went silent and heard the sound of rushing water, and I imagined the beautiful waterfall I had seen roaring outside.

"The waterfalls..." Jane murmured, "They're echoing all the way here."

Tarzen let out a similar string of grunts before saying, "Friends there. See friends.

Jane brightened as she realized something, "Oh, now I've got it!" She let out the same string of grunts Tarzan had when we entered this area and continued, "means heart. Friends in our hearts."

Tarzan nodded, "Heart."

I felt my spirits drop and Sora looked just as disappointed as he lamely said, "Oh, so that's what it meant."

Tarzan spoke, "Friends, Same heart. Clayton, lose heart. No heart, no see friends. No heart, no friends."

This seemed to click with us and Sora turned to Donald, rubbing the back of his head, "Sorry about what I said."

Donald waved his hands, "I'm sorry too."

Goofy wrapped them in a hug, "Yeah, all for one, huh?"

At the moment's end, the blue butterflies shifted and scattered, flying into the air to reveal a glowing keyhole.

I turned to Sora and summoned my keyblade, raising it, "Mind if I try my hand at it?"

Sora shrugged and I spun my blade in my hand once before aiming it at the keyhole. A beam of light shot out of the tip of Abaddon Plasma and entered into the keyhole. There was a deep sound of a lock sliding into place and the world's keyhole was sealed. The keyhole glowed briefly before vanishing into motes of light and something fell out of the keyhole right before it vanished.

I bent to pick it up and realized what it was, "A gummi!"

"But it's sure not the king's..." Goofy said sadly.

Donald's head hung low when suddenly Terk went next to him and nudged him with her shoulder. Donald blinked at the female gorilla in confusion but I felt a sly smile come to my face at what I suspected.

Jane beat me to the punch and grinned at the sorcerer duck, "I think someone has a new admirer."

Donald looked at her and then to Terk before his eyes widened in comprehension.

"No no no no!" He quacked in alarm, "Daisy would kill me!"

We all shared a laugh at Donald's expense as he frantically waved his arms in front of his face.


	15. Chapter 15

**I haven't gotten any reviews since the Olympus Coliseum... Really no comments at all? Come on!**

 **Is the whole 'reviews are loved' thing pointless?**

 ***sigh***

 **Whatever, I'm still gonna say it!**

 **Reviews are loved! Constructive criticism only!**

 **All credit to respective owners!**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

With the sealing of the keyhole completed (and some mild teasing of the now embarrassed and grumpy duck sorcerer), we decided it was time we left the world and look into how to get to the other worlds out there. After deflecting Jane's inquiry as to where our ship was however, Tarzan approached us, something clasped in his hand.

"Sora, Tarzan, Niji, Donald, Goofy. Friends." He said, and passed what he was holding to Sora.

I looked quizzically at what seemed to be a charm that seemed to made out a vine with a butterfly at the end, "A charm?"

Shrugging, we thanked Tarzan and Jane profusely - and they thanked us just as fervently - for their help and departed from the world.

* * *

The first thing I demanded when we were back on the gummi ship was ask Donald to give me a crash course in flying it. I didn't expect to be an expert anytime soon, but I did want to be able to at least fly to a destination, take off, and land (and maybe an evasive maneuver or two in case we ran into heartless or asteroids). Donald explained the process and how to steer the ship and allowed me to fly partway back to get the hang of it. Admittedly, I was nervous as I was flying the ship that carried us from world to world but Donald assured me that he would make sure we didn't crash.

After we had got to the ship and Sora and I were taught how to fly, we decided that we should look at the gummi blocks that we had received from the keyholes. We had examined the unique gummi pieces that we had received from Wonderland and The Deep Jungle, but still had no idea what they actually did. Goofy offered the idea to show them to Leon, who might have a better idea.

Seeing as none of us had a better idea or protests, we began driving the ship back to Traverse Town. Donald relieved me fo the controls after I steered a bit to close to an asteroid for comfort and I went down, got my clothes all fixed up and washed, and walked over to Sora who was looking at the charm.

"What do I do with this?" He wondered aloud, tossing it into the air a couple of times, "It's odd, I can feel... something from this thing, it reminds me of when I got the keyblade."

I frowned and thought about it before an idea came to me, realization dawning in my head like a beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds, "Summon your keyblade and hand me the charm!"

Sora blinked at me as Goofy and Donald craned their necks to give me a look. Sora shrugged and summoned his keyblade to his hand and tossed me the charm.

'Not a charm.' I amended in my head.

"So what now?" He said, holding his keyblade out.

'A KEYchain.' I confirmed to myself.

I bent to look at the handle and removed his current keychain before clipping the one we had received from Tarzan to it. The keyblade flashed and suddenly it overall appearance changed from the simple design to a more wild appearance. The new keyblade appeared to be made of wood and and purple leather-like wraps. Its handle was orange and surrounded by a circular, tan guard with two spikes near its top. The guard was almost entirely covered by the dark purple leather-like wrappings wrapped around it. The shaft was very thin, tan, and long, to the point that the keyblade was longer than before. Its teeth were made of five blunt, tan spikes separated by the same dark purple leather from the guard.

Sora blinked in surprised before he grinned in excitement, "Cool! A new keyblade!"

I leaned over the keyblade and frowned uncertainly, "It's made of wood... isn't that weaker than the metal?"

Sora tilted his head before smiling slyly, "Let's test it out then!"

I blinked and began to smirk, "Spar?"

"Spar." He replied confidently, "And I know just the world!"

* * *

We told Donald to take us to the Olympus Coliseum and - when we landed - asked Phil for the use of the arena.

We had simply wanted to test out the Jungle King's affect on Sora, but Hercules insisted on helping coach us as he did use a sword to fight and knew a fair bit about swordplay. I knew he was strong, but after revealing that he was a demigod, I understood exactly why he was able to go up against Cerberus and win. After setting up some barrels around him, Hercules also showed us one of his strongest attacks - named Stun Impact - when he let out a sharp shout and drove both of his fists into the ground and a dome of gold lightning erupted off him, smashing all of the barrels into splinters. My jaw dropped and I was sure that Sora was looking just as stunned at how strong the attack was. After a few hours of coaching and explaining how to grasp the concept, we both had been able to form a completed Stun impact - thought nowhere near his in size and making a sharp shoving motion outward rather than slamming the ground- and he told us to keep practicing it to make the technique stronger.

Finally, Phil told us to spar.

"Not bad kid!" Phil said, watching with Hercules as Sora and I battled, "You both have gotten a bit better since I last saw you."

I grunted as Sora pressed down with strength that was definitely stronger than I was expecting, trying to take solace in the compliment. I ducked away and rolled to the side to gain some room and avoid the swipe of Jungle King (as it turned out each keyblade he used he knew the name of). I quickly got in my stance and warily eyed Sora as he got back in his stance. He rushed me and I backpedaled and began to block and dodge, he pressed me up against the wall and I ducked away from the downward slash rather than try to catch it on my keyblade. I was pretty sure that this keyblade had enhanced Sora's strength and that was why he was hitting with way more force than I remembered him being able to in our last spar. Abaddon Plasma had already been enhancing my growth and I was sure the Kingdom Key had been doing the same for Sora. In lieu of that line of thought, it would stand to reason that Sora's and my growth would roughly be equal seeing as we both had been fighting and training hard while traveling the same worlds.

However, the addition of the Jungle King changed that.

With the keyblade also adding its power to Sora's, it tipped the scales in his favor. He was stronger, a bit faster, and had more stamina.

Not to mention the longer reach of Jungle King.

I wasn't going to go down just because he had a boost in strength though, I may not have had a new keyblade to use, but Abaddon Plasma was also a keyblade.

And as far I was concerned?

It was a damn good one and I just needed to keep pushing myself to get better.

I caught Sora's next strike and pressed braced myself against his strength as we locked weapons. We both struggled before leaping away from each other. We shared a look before dropping out of our stances and dismissing our keyblades. We knew all we needed to at the moment and that was more than enough for now. With that settled and thanking Hercules and Phil for their help, once again. Phil handed us a pouch that had a generous amount of munny for the tournament we had fought in. Seeing as we technically beat Cloud in the final match, we were the winners and thus given the prize.

* * *

Later in the gummi ship me and Sora had been lounging in the lower rooms while discussing the new keyblade.

"Well..." I sighed, "That keyblade is definitely not gonna snap or splinter from a strong blow."

Sora flexed his hand before clenching it into a fist, "I could feel the Jungle King enhancing my strength! This is great!"

I rolled my eyes and smirked, "I could feel it, new keyblades must be able to add more power if we use them. Neat as that is though, think I'll stick with Abaddon Plasma. It's my personal keyblade and frankly I want to get stronger the old fashioned way and rely on myself to be able to grow strong with my own keyblade."

Sora gave me an impressed look, I liked to think I sounded cool and mature most of the time, but moments like these really showed that off. I might have continued, but Donald's voice came down.

"Approaching Traverse Town!" He called.

We shared a look and made our way up the stairs to the cockpit.

* * *

Sora was given a chance to get us through the final homestretch to Traverse Town and land us there.

Which he did pretty well.

We strolled out into the plaza and I noticed that Yuffie was leaning on the wall next to that odd-looking mailbox to our right.

I made my way over to her and smiled in greeting, "Hey."

She gave us a wide smile, "Heya! How have you been? Any fun stuff lately?"

Sora gave a noncommittal shrug while I waved a hand, "We beat some heartless, locked some worlds' keyholes from said heartless, and fought in a tournament that ended up with us beating up a giant three-headed dog that guards that world's hell. Nothing too huge."

Yuffie gave a short laugh, "I see."

Goofy piped in, "We were wondering if ya could tell us where Leon is."

Yuffie thought for a moment before nodding to himself, "He likes to train in an underground cavern beneath the city, you might wanna look there."

"Where is it?" Donald inquired.

"In the waterway." She replied, "There is a passageway to the underground caverns there."

I nodded, "Thanks Yuffie, really."

She gave us a mock salute as we walked away.

I rubbed my chin as a nagging thought occurred to me, "Hey, Donald? Goofy? I had a question."

They turned to me and I pointed at the item shop.

"Do you think they sell better weapons?" I asked, "I mean, as long as Sora and I are getting keychains here and there that'll make us stronger, you might as well also get some better weapons too, right?"

Goofy chuckled as he patted me on the back, "That's kind of you, really. But we actually have better weapons than the ones we are using now, we just don't use them unless necessary."

I turned to them, "Then why not use them? Wouldn't make things easier for us on the whole?"

Sora actually stepped in, "They are doing the same thing that you are."

I turned to him, eyebrows raised in confusion, "What?"

"You said that even if you find another keychain, you'd want to get stronger by using Abaddon Plasma, right?" Sora reminded me.

Donald followed, "If we used our best weapons all, we might be too reliant on them. We need to be able to fight well with even our most basic weapons."

I frowned.

I got what they were saying, hell I made the same 'mature' proclamation to Sora at the end of our little practice bout on the gummi ship.

Was it unreasonable of me to want them to have better equipment when I wasn't going to rely on 'better' keyblades myself?

"Well... I still think that we might as well check, right?" I pushed - firm in my opinion - this wasn't a matter of me needing to learn to be just as confident in my basic keyblade, "In any case, the more weapons we have, your basic items can always act as a backup."

Donald and Goofy were already masters when it came to skills and powers, I wasn't under any delusions when it came to Sora and I. We were still novice wielders, we weren't slouches in sword fighting, but play-fights on an island and battling monsters that would devour worlds and steal the hearts of multitudes of innocent people were universes apart. I couldn't afford to give myself any handicaps while I was training in case something went wrong and all I had was my basic weapon. Donald and Goofy on the other hand weren't needing to hold back because they were unskilled - quite the opposite - they should've used better weapons because it would empower them beyond what they could do with what they already had (And they already could do quite a bit of damage).

"We couldn't afford to handicap our most experienced members." I said, "I know they can use their basic weapons, but upgrades can't hurt at all."

* * *

With my opinion made clear and a bit more cajoling/insisting/debating on my part, we visited Donald's nephews' shop in order to see what weapons they had in stock. I checked the weapons section and picked up separate staffs and shields, testing their weight and trying to get a feeling for the power that was held within the material. I finally picked out a yellow staff (hat was almost identical o Donald's normal staff except for the yellow color) that was labelled 'The Wisdom Staff' and a somewhat intricately designed shield called 'The Onyx Shield' and brought them to Sora, Donald, and Goofy; who was currently deciding on whether or not we should get potions, ethers, or buy some elixirs.

"I may be no expert." I said as I approached, "But I can tell just from holding these that items are already the best we can get here."

I handed Donald the staff and Goofy the shield before I approached the counter, "How much for the wisdom staff and onyx shield?"

They all quickly added the cost and chorused, "6800 munny!"

My jaw dropped slightly and quickly shook off my surprise before I yanked out my wallet. To be honest, I was a bit worried that I didn't have enough to pay for the both of them, even with all the fights we had had and all the munny I had gathered. I quickly began thumbing through the munny I had stored in my wallet. I frowned briefly as I noted that paying for the items would violently and quickly murder all the munny I had managed to gather from all the heartless we had beaten in Wonderland, The Deep Jungle, and even the prize munny we had been given from the tournament in the Olympus Coliseum.

With a half-defeated, half-resigned sigh, I pulled the correct amount and placed it on the counter, "Well there we go, I'm sure you can sort it at least."

I turned away from the three ducklings and saw Sora giving me a worried look, "Did you just use up all your munny?"

I looked at my now empty wallet and could almost SEE the animated cough of dust coming from it, "Yep... Mind loaning me some?"

* * *

With my slight financial crisis shoved to the wayside for now (mainly because Sora decided not to answer my request and immediately insisting we leave the shop to find Leon [stingy jerk]), our little band of fighters made our way to the alleyway to see that he waterway was blocked off by metal pipes. We all stared as I grasped a bar and tested how much it gave. Surprisingly, they seemed to be pretty fragile.

After I voiced that observation, I somehow found myself poised in a pseudo-sprint stance behind Sora and we all ran into the bars in a charge. With a loud snapping 'clang', we all broke through the bars and fell face-first into the water. With the bars cleared, we all got up - all the while I was questioning my sanity as to WHY I acted like Sora - and made our way deeper down the waterway. It took a minute's amount of sloshing through the ankle deep water before we found the waterway's floor dipped down and we were soon reduced to swimming. After a relatively short amount of swimming, I heard the distinct sound of a sword slicing through the air. We found Leon slashing through the air and Aerith watching him quietly.

They all seemed a bit confused as to why we were suddenly clambering out of the water and onto the small cropping of rocks, but seemed to shrug it off. We got out of the pool and Sora waved at Aerith before talking to Leon and telling him of our adventure so far.

"So you found the Keyhole?" Leon inquired.

"Yeah." I replied.

"The keyblade locked it automatically." Sora supplied.

"Good." Aerith replied.

"Every world in the stars has a keyhole. It's keyhole - in turn - leads to the heart of the world." Leon said quietly, "Even this world must have a keyhole."

"What do you mean?" Sora asked.

"How are you sure?" I inquired curiously.

"It was in Ansem's report." Aerith said.

"If the heartless find the keyhole and enter it, then they do something to the world's heart." Leon informed us.

"What happens to the world?" Sora asked worried as to what might happen.

Leon sighed as Aerith gravely replied, "In the end, it disappears."

"WHAT?" We all chorused in dismay.

"That' why the keyblades you both wield are so important." Leon said.

"Please lock the keyholes." Aerith pleaded, "You're the only ones who can."

I could almost feel the weight of the huge responsibility land on my shoulders, and Sora looked just as uncertain as I felt.

"I don't know..." He said, running a hand through his hair in uncertainty.

"Seeing the the other worlds would serve you well." Leon offered.

"Yeah!" Donald said enthusiastically.

"You gotta find your friends, and King Mickey!" Goofy reminded.

"I guess you're right..." Sora allowed before perking up, "Okay!"

"By the way," I said, digging through my pockets, "Hey Donald, do you still have it?"

"What?" The duck responded.

"The gummi block!" I reminded him.

He blinked and brought out the gummi blocks we had acquired from sealing the keyholes and held them out.

"We could tell these gummi blocks were different than the regular ones, but we couldn't exactly tell how. Do you know what they can do?" Sora asked.

Leon looked at them but seemed stumped before shaking his head.

"Ask Cid. He should know." Aerith interjected.

We nodded and turned to leave when Leon stopped us and pressed a dark brown rock that glowed with amber light from within into Sora's hand. He claimed that he had been carrying it for luck and he wanted us to hold on to it.

We accepted and began to make our way back to Cid's shop.


	16. Chapter 16

**Considering the disappointing lack of reviews...I think no one likes this story...**

 **Alas, what I would like has never been up for value though. I am going to keep this story going till I run out of enthusiasm!**

 **Ah well so much for brooding, Review and Constructive Criticism (only) are loved!**

 **P.S. All credit to respective owners**

 **-YARN**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

When we passed through the second district - after using he waterway to get back to the alley and beating down a few Blue Rhapsodies and Yellow Operas that cast lightning - several soldier heartless and shadows materialized, making us immediately drop into our various stances.

We broke off from each other and began to engage the heartless, I rolled under a cyclone kick and flung my keyblade at a shadow - exploding it into black smoke - before raising my free hand and firing a fire spell at another. As it was engulfed in flames, I summoned my keyblade in hand and whirled, bring the weapon in a block against the claws of the soldier heartless. I back-stepped from another slash before swiping Abaddon Plasma through the heartless, dispelling it entirely.

We had barely finished off the group when a Large Body materialized surrounded by four green lantern heartless. I jumped back and fired a few fire spells with my keyblade, each of them exploding on contact with the large body. I rushed in to finish it off when I saw the green glow of a healing spell around it. I turned to see Donald and Sora both looking at me in confusion when a green lantern heartless swooped in our path. I blinked before realizing that the green lanterns must have been capable of healing other heartless (given their color scheme). I heard the large body rumble behind me and I quickly moved away as its beady yellow eyes stared at me.

"We need to take out all of the green lantern heartless!" I called as the large body came at me with a stomach charge, "They'll just keep healing the large body until they're gone!"

They nodded as I braced myself and put up a guard with my keyblade. Even with me being 'ready' to intercept the heartless attack, I stumbled back as the force nearly bowled me straight over. Using the momentum of the attack, I jumped back and landed on the edge of the fountain, balancing on the rim.

Sora and Goofy were already taking down the green heartless when Donald let out a cry of 'Thunder!' Lightning crackled down from the sky but the green lantern heartless seemed wholly unaffected as the electricity dispersed into a shower of green energy as it made contact with them.

I sighed as I ducked out from under a haymaker from the large body, of course the damn lanterns were magic proof.

Regardless of the annoying heartless, I was able to give the lumbering large body the runaround long enough for Sora, Donald, and Goofy to dispatch the lanterns. I leapt away from the heartless and swung my keyblade with a shout of 'Deep freeze'; shooting out a barrage of icy bolts that struck the large body and caused several spots on its body to erupt with jagged ice crystals. It struggled to move but I didn't hold back and vaulted into the air before bringing my keyblade down in a devastating slice on its head.

I landed of my feet and backpedaled as the Large Body twitched.

I looked at my keyblade and judged my reserves of magic. I hadn't felt like I put anymore power than usual into my blizzard spell... but it was noticeably stronger than most of my other castings so far.

Was my magic growing stronger?

I didn't have anymore time to think on it as the Large Body toppled only for four new Large Bodies to materialize around us. I growled internally and decided that I wasn't going to draw this out and began to cast multiple fire spells. I hated the fat heartless because despite their lumbering speed they were pretty much immune to physical attacks thanks to their massive stomachs.

Fighting four of them at once using the same duck around and attack tactic, all the while having to avoid body slams and stomach charges?

No. Not even going to consider that; if I wanted this to end now, magic was my best choice.

Sora scowled at the heartless and leapt back as a large body attempted to flatten him; Donald and Goofy both began to back off as my casting grew more and more wild. Soon I felt my reserves of magic dwindle to near nothing, but a strange sensation began to form in my body; it was as through there was a small flame that was building up and running through my bones. It was similar to when Sora and I had been given the thunder and ice spells. It wasn't painful or uncomfortable, but as if my body was feeling a heat that wasn't natural coursing through it like a fuel trail that was about to hit the powder keg and blow up.

And it did.

I let out a shout as the feeling seemed to bubble over and the flames within me exploded outward in a rush of flame. Instead of going out in a wave that I expected to scorch the area around me though, the wisps fire coalesced around me and I was wreathed in what seemed to be burning embers and a warm orange glow of a lit flame. I took a moment to see that even my keyblade was glowing with the same sort of aura. Liquid hot power was flowing through each of my veins like someone had set my blood on fire without any pain. I glanced around to see that in my casting I had destroyed the large bodies and now there were several Blue Rhapsodies darting around in the area in front of me.

I charged at one and swung my keyblade, and to my surprise my keyblade trailed fire and let out bursts of flame that drastically increased the power of my swings. As one heartless fell, the others immediately launched bolts of ice at me. I ducked and weaved in between the ice bolts, keyblade destroying the rhapsodies as they were seared into nothingness. It barely took any time to clear them away and I stared at my handiwork before the feeling of fire that had been within me ebbed. The fiery aura around me faded away and the odd warmth in my body dissipated as well. I let out a harsh breath as my magic reserves twinged uncomfortably and my body felt kinda... off, as thought I was coming down off a mild sugar high and needed a minute to regain my bearings.

"Niji, what was that?" Sora exclaimed as he approached, eyes wide in excitement before he steadied me with a hand on my shoulder, "That was awesome!"

"I don't know..." I said, absently rubbing my arm as though I could draw out the burst of power with friction-generated warmth, "I just felt this feeling kinda burning hotter and hotter when I kept using fire to clear out the large bodies. The next thing I knew is the feeling exploded and suddenly I was covered in fire and swinging my keyblade as it was coated in flames."

Sora looked at me dubiously, "So you used fire too much and that made you catch on fire?"

I shrugged and cracked my neck before gathering up the scattered munny, "Near enough as far as I can tell. Well, at least my wallet isn't going to be chronically empty anymore."

I tucked my wallet away and looked around the plaza, hoping to catch some indication of Traverse Town's keyhole. If Leon was right, this world needed to be sealed off from falling to the heartless if other's world weren't going to be kept from falling. Traverse Town was practically a safe haven - and if not a safe haven, at least a place that people ended up at - for those lucky few who survived the fall of their respective worlds. As much as I wanted to test out my new fire ability, now wasn't the place for such a thing.

Sora gave me an look, "What's wrong?"

I shook my head as nothing seemed to jump out at me, "Just hoping we find the keyhole soon. We need to be certain that it gets locked as soon as possible."

Sora frowned in consideration of that before shaking off the gloom and grinning, "Don't worry, I know we'll find it! Let's first go to Cid, we still need out what the different gummi blocks do."

I couldn't argue with that, so I shrugged and followed Sora to the first district.

* * *

Finding Cid rather easily, we quickly explained about the gummi blocks that we had found but had no idea what they were for.

"You're be kidding me!" Cid exclaimed incredulously as he slapped his forehead, "You mean to tell me you've been flying a gummi ship and hadn't had no idea what navigation gummis are? Bunch of pinheads, interspace ain't no playground!"

We took offense to this and I complained, "Cut us some slack! Two of our group didn't even know what gummi ships even WERE until a few days ago!"

"There are alot of things we don't know, so what?" Sora followed up, summoning Jungle King and holding it out, "We have to use the gummi ship to get to other worlds and seal their keyholes! We have no choice!"

Cid held up his hands in a placating manner, "Woah, easy. I didn't know, no hard feelings, alright? Well, I guess I can lend you all a hand."

Sora smiled, "Thanks."

"Basically, navigation gummi are gummi blocks that allow your ship to travel to new places." Cid explained, "So you want one on your ship?"

We all nodded.

"I'll install it for ya," Cid said, bringing out a small book, "But first I got to deliver this to someone."

"What is it?" Sora said, picking it up.

"It's a book that someone wanted me to fix." Cid said, "It was nearly falling apart when the guy brought it in, and honestly it was too beat up to completely restore to the way it was. That aside, I think I did a pretty decent job of putting it back together."

"We can do that." I said, "It's the least we can do in thanks for all your help."

"Thanks," He said, "It's in the old house past the Third District. Look for a big fire sign, you can't miss it."

Cid gruffly grunted in thanks when a huge ringing echoed throughout the area and Sora, Donald, Goofy, and I jumped at the loud noise.

"Wh-What was that?" Sora said.

Cid had already half-turned to leave but cocked his head, "Hmm? The bell at the Gizmo shop is ringing. Check it out if you want, but the deliver the book first. When you're done, stop by the house in the Third District. I'll be there."

* * *

We cut through the large doors to the Third District, and had barely made it halfway across the plaza when heartless began to appear in swirls of darkness. It was a group of soldier heartless and one type of heartless that wore goggles and had wings that allowed it to fly through the air and try to hit us with scissor kicks and dive-bombs. The worst part about it was they constantly flew out of range right after they attacked.

"Sora!" I said, "I'll catch the attack, then you hit it with magic while I pin it!"

Sora nodded and readied himself, angling his keyblade. When the air soldier rushed at me, I moved my keyblade to block its attack before twisting to smash the handguard into its stomach as it was momentarily stunned.

"Now!" I roared.

"Fire!" Sora commanded, a gout of flame erupting from his keyblade to collide with the heartless and sear it into oblivion.

I flinched away from the flames and stepped back as we all carefully watched the plaza to see if anymore heartless wanted to come out and play. After ten seconds of silence, our group decompressed and began to scour the third district for the for the door.

It wasn't really difficult, finding the large door emblazoned with a fire emblem. The only real difficulty was the fact we couldn't open it no matter how hard we lifted.

I let out a grunt of frustration as I toppled back onto my ass, "Damn! Why won't it open?"

"Maybe it's locked?" Goofy replied, bending down to inspect the symbol.

I frowned at the door and then I realized something so obvious that I felt like hitting my head against a wall, "Oh my god, I am such an idiot."

Sora looked at me, "What?"

I gestured at the symbol, "It's a door that has a flame on it! We need fire to open it."

Sora looked at the fire symbol and facepalmed, "Well at least your not alone in stupidity."

I summoned my keyblade and pointed it at the door, "Fire!"

The fireball erupted from my keyblade and hit the door, which glowed a bright orange and then gave a loud click. The slab of rock slid up and I rolled my eyes.

Clearly, I needed to think before I act, I was starting to rely too much on might.

We made our way in to see a rather dilapidated house across the way from some shifting rocks. Easily leaping across the platforms, we inspected the house to see the blanket that hung across the side could be shifted to enter the building. We all looked around and I immediately noted that this house was abandoned for quite some time. Dust coated every surface and was kicked up in a cloud with every step, I turned around and saw Sora gawking at empty air.

"Kairi?" He said softly.

Goofy and Donald noticed this and Goofy called out, "Sora?"

He turned to look at Goofy and Donald but turned away only for his face to fall in utter despair and disappointment.

I walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder, "Sora, what's going on with you? You've been staring off into space and keep talking as though you see Kairi."

He was about to give me a response when a voice interrupted, "Well, well."

We all turned to see a old man with a beard that was incredibly long dressed in blue robes and a same color pointy hat. He seemed to fit the stereotypical aesthetic of a wizard or magician in the stories my mother sometimes read to me when I was a child. I wasn't sure if I was right, but I could sense magic radiating off of him like a furnace producing heat, I had no doubt that he was just as strong as Donald (maybe even more-so) when it came to magic. He had a wand in his right hand and was carrying a brown bag in his left.

"You've come sooner than I expected." He continued.

"Wha..." Sora gaped for a moment before moving past the confusion, "You knew we were coming?"

"Of course." The man said cheerfully.

"Are you... A heartless?" Sora asked cautiously.

I facepalmed at the question, "Really Sora?"

"He doesn't look like one." Donald commented, rolling his eyes.

The man laughed a bit, "Oh my. No. My name is Merlin, and I am a sorcerer, as you can see."

I blinked.

Well, at least I was right.

"I have spent much of my time traveling." He once again continued, "However it is good to be home. The king hd requested that I help you on your journey."

"King Mickey?" Goofy inquired.

"Yes, indeed." He said, nodding in greeting to the magician and knight, "Donald, Goofy. And what would your names be?"

I stepped forward and held out a hand, "I'm Niji."

Sora followed and said, "I'm Sora."

The old sorcerer's eyes lit up, "Ah, so you have found the key!"

Donald nodded before asking, "What did the king ask you to do?"

Merlin inspected me and Sora before he replied, "He wanted me to lend a hand by teaching you magic and a getting a better handle on some of the skills that keyblade wielders should know. But one moment."

He set his bag down and went to the middle of the room, and raising his arms like a music conductor.

"Presto!" He commanded.

He began to wave his wand and dance, and his bag opened and we watched in amazement as furnishing began to fly out and arrange themselves in the room while expanding to regular size as they exited the bag. A bed landed on the side and blankets tucked themselves under the mattress, falling neatly and tidily. A tabled landed quietly before books began to fall onto it and stacked themselves haphazardly. soon the place was a lot more like a livable and cozy room than a dark and dusty abandoned shack.

"There we are." Merlin said with a satisfaction before turning to us, "Now, as I told you, I am here to help you with your magic and teach you some skill that King Mickey told me were necessary for all fledgling keyblade wielders such as yourselves. We can begin at anytime, but I do have one last thing you should know."

He pointed to what seemed to be a miniature toy carriage, and before our eyes, motes of blue light coalesced into the form of a blue robed woman with a wand.

"I am the fairy godmother." She said happily, "I have also been instructed to give you aid on your journey."

With that she evaporated into blue light and left the toy carriage behind.

"Uhm..." I began, "Well, I suppose we could train for a bit."

"Very well!" Merlin said, clapping his hands together, "Follow me!"

* * *

After we rode a ceiling tile to the second story we found a large hall that was empty. It turned out that it was a magically enhanced and enlarged training room.

And it was perfect for Sora and I to spar and practice magic when we had some free time on our hands. To help our aim with magic, Merlin would conjure furniture for us to practice on and they could be set on stationary or moving, and even better we could cast magic without our reserves running out due to an effect Merlin himself enchanted the room with. Deciding to try what had happened before, I began to cast fire over and over, making sure that the odd warmth within me began to build.

I grinned.


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay... so I began writing immediately after posting the last chapter and so yeah...**

 **Yay, I got one more review, thanks!**

 **Looking back at KHBBS - KH3D (timeline sense) and all the unexplained bits in the story, I decided I'd try conjecture and reasonable explanations for some powers. If I have any holes you want me to try to address (as I constantly love speculation on certain concepts and I don't mind discussing Kingdom Hearts) feel free to leave a review or PM me. As for this chapter and the moves that are learned, I looked up the wiki on what abilities were the most probable for Sora and** **Niji** **at this stage in their journey and using the KHFM and what I saw, gave them the appropriate moves (plus one of the ones that** **Niji** **uses is one I like and looks too cool not to use). I even made sure to check the descriptions so they were in the realm of possibilities for the two. I know there are variations that are elementally based, but I feel like they would use a more basic-/logical/all-encompassing/well-suited element attack (light). There is another fic - one which I highly recommend - known as "Kingdom Hearts Dual Keys" that give Sora the same attacks, and I want to clarify that I would never intentionally rip off another author's work and I hope you believe me. I had actually picked these before I decided to read that specific chapter in Dual Keys and saw the Shotlocks given; I wrestled with indecision before finally sticking with what I had and leaving it at that.**

 **BTW, did you know that when fighting as Sora in the Hollow Bastion with a wooden sword, Stun impact and Gravity Break - two abilities I tested during that brief period for just this story - actually still work and deal significant damage to enemies?**

 **P.S. All credit to respective owners.**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

 **P.S. Edited (slightly)**

* * *

Merlin was definitely surprised to see that I suddenly exploded into flame and began to rush to hit the targets around me with swings of my flame-coated keyblade. There was the odd sensation of the flames that were surrounding me pulling at my reserves to sustain themselves as my magic was almost immediately refreshed by Merlins's enchantments. Fortunately, it didn't bother me too much since I didn't have to worry about my magic running thin, I wasn't holding back as the embers of magic flared. I stopped when I realized the furniture had stopped moving and I was standing in the middle of the room, flames still pouring off of me. Merlin waved a hand and all of the floating furniture vanished in a puff of smoke.

Sora was staring and I felt the heat in my body pulsing as Merlin carefully walked over and inspected me.

"I don't believe it..." He said, "Normally keyblade wielders need a proper instructor before tapping into Command Styles!"

"Command Styles?" I asked, feeling the heat in my body begin to slowly ebb as I had stopped moving or attacking, "Is this what this is?"

Merlin looked at me in surprise, before shaking his head and sighing, "So it was purely chance? Well I suppose that makes sense. I suppose it is as good a time as any to teach you more about a keyblade wielder's special magics."

* * *

Sora had eagerly tried to use what was apparently a Command Style and initiated the one I had been using by casting a fire spell multiple times. Since we both were capable of activating said Command Styles, Merlin decided to instruct us immediately on what they were and proper usage.

For all that the lesson was to be about magic, Merlin did give us a brief overview of the keyblade's history and how it may have come into our possession. He told us that most commonly, any keyblade wielder had the ability to 'pass on' the ability to wield keyblades to those who they deemed worthy, usually through what was known as an Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony. He told us the phase that was recited and I stiffened as I realized that the dream - in which I first acquired Starlight as a temporary keyblade - had begun with those words. However as we both couldn't remember any sort of person ever giving us a keyblade, he explained that it was also possible that keyblades could come into possession of those who had strong hearts without the need for a ceremony, which he was sure was the case with us. Afterwards, he began to explain certain abilities exclusive to people who wielded keyblades.

"So let me see if I get it..." I said slowly, "Command Styles are basically temporary power boosts that occur when we use a specific offensive elemental magic or certain types of attacks?"

Merlin nodded, "Indeed. As it stands, novice keyblade wielders usually access Command Styles by casting elemental magic and then allowing the feel of the magic to build while in combat. Casting the elemental spell does help trigger the Command Style to a degree but is generally not a good idea as the exhaustion will hit you much more severely once the power of the Command Style fades away if you overcast the spell. Over time, wielders even discover Command styles that are unique to them and them alone. As it stands, you will probably be able to activate the three most basic Command Styles. Firestorm, Diamond Dust, and Thunder Bolt. I assume you can understand which element they correspond to?"

He demonstrated by holding out his hand and three orbs of fire, ice, and lightning respectively formed in the air.

"Wait..." Sora said, "If we could have gone into a Command Style at any time, why didn't we start using Diamond Dust at the Court in Wonderland or Thunder Bolt during out fight with Cerberus or the Stealth Sneak?"

Merlin nodded at Sora, smiling in approval, "A very good question, Sora. You see, it is another reason while overcasting isn't always a foolproof way to activate the Command Style. You need to conserve leftover mana or magical energy while fighting to activate the Command Style for any feasible amount of time. Not just that, but as I understand, you had only just received the spells, and therefore your grasp on utilization of the magic was shaky and unrefined, hampering your ability to activate the Command Style as your bodies were unaccustomed to the energy flux of the magic's Command Style. You both have truly begun to comfortably fit fire into your respective combat styles; as time goes on, you will do the same to any of the other magics and respective command styles you acquire on your journey."

"So what if we don't want to activate a Command Style at a certain time even if we had the magic built up?" I said, "While it's awesome and really strong, no doubt there'll be times when we may want to conserve our energy right?"

Merlin turned to me, "Very true! As I understand it, instinctively you can stem the release now that you have experienced it, keeping the Command Style from activating. However, stemming the effect for too long will cause the buildup of power to disappear, it takes time and focus to realize how to fight while keeping the Command Style's activation from dissipating. In time you both may be able to keep the energy of a command style going indefinitely while in the midst of a battle or conserve the buildup to release it at a opportune moment. However, you can't simply to be able to master such powerful skills at the very beginning, you need much more practice and meditation. It usually takes years, and while I will admit that the growth rate you both have shown in such a short time is nothing short of phenomenal, you are both still novices with no formal training to speak of."

Sora groaned at that but I didn't mind that reason as much as he did, we couldn't just be masters from the get-go and I already made my peace with that. What I wasn't able to be at peace with was the fact we didn't HAVE time. Ever second that we wasted, was another second that the heartless were that much closer to plunging another world into darkness, was another moment our friends could be in trouble and be hurt. We needed to be strong, and be strong fast.

"I do however have one skill that will help you both tremendously in your future battles, if you wish to learn." Merlin said after seeing our crestfallen expressions.

We perked up at that, and Sora spoke up eagerly, "What are they?"

The wizard grinned, "Shotlocks."

* * *

As it turned out, Shotlocks were techniques that were basically an 'ace in the hole' type of attack that were a way to shoot our way out of a tough situation or beat a powerful enemy and normal attacks weren't working. They were quite possibly more useful than Command Styles depending on the situation and they were something that all keyblade wielders - masters or no - could use if given instructions and a demonstration on how. With that Merlin gave us a list of several different and basic types of Shotlocks that we could use. Every keyblade wielder had a unique Shotlock - much like Command Styles had - and we would need to master basic Shotlocks before beginning to understand and find our personal Shotlocks.

"I cannot actually perform shotlocks," he began, waving a hand and conjuring up furniture as targets in the practice room above, "Seeing as I do not wield a keyblade and therefore I am unable to utilize the magic you require. However, I can show you a facsimile of the shotlocks that I have been told that keyblade wielders use and help you apply them."

He waved his and and suddenly a illusion of a featureless mannequin holding what seemed to be the Starlight keyblade appeared before us before dropping into a stance. I took a step back in shock and Merlin chuckled at my reaction.

"Worry not, young Niji." He reassured, "It is a simple illusion that should demonstrate the Shotlock you wish to learn."

I was visibly wary but swallowed down my worry, this was something I had to learn, I wanted to get stronger.

* * *

I panted for breath as I stared at the slightly charred ceiling of the practice room we had been using for the past hour. I had just used two Shotlocks and the effects of using them twice in a row were almost enough to floor me. I had chosen to use Chaos Snake and Photon Charge as they were both attacks that were among the simplest to use but didn't lose out on power (I hope). The first few attempts were really more of me and Sora crashing headlong into furniture at what felt like Mach 100 and blast ourselves off our feet when we tried our projectile Shotlocks. It took dozens of nonstop tries (and multiple cures on Donald's part) before we finally were able to execute them every time without overt mistakes, and even more practice to make sure the attack was up to Merlin's meticulous standards. After using Photon Charge the first time, I noted it was quite similar to Sonic Blade and applying the same concepts to the attack helped me grasp it rather well while also improving Sonic Blade's technique. The force and strength of the attack was much more powerful though and while more demanding, it wasn't too difficult to apply. Sora had decided to pick one called Ragnarock rather than one of the other projectile Shotlocks that I had chosen, but did join me in learning Photon Charge. Thanks to the rejuvenation enchantments in Merlin's room, he let us practice them almost without pause, but after we both claimed to have a grip on the strain, he dropped the enchantments - while also telling Sora to switch back to the kingdom keyblade - and told us to try them out. Both me and Sora were able to perform the first Shotlock without too much strain, but launching one right after that pushed us too far and we both needed to stop moving for a second while we tried to recover.

"Oh man..." I huffed in irritation, "That was way too tiring... I can use two... maybe three if I really push, but it'd probably knock me out for the rest of any fight..."

"Shotlocks cost focus, will, and energy; as mentioned, they are arguably the most powerful moves afforded to keyblade wielders." Merlin said, eyes lighting with humor, "And naturally, you cannot keep using them over and over. You will need time to regain the focus required for such an attack. Shotlocks are convenient in that they don't draw form your normal magical reserves, so - while they can be used in battle - they won't diminish your overall abilities if used sparingly enough and with caution. Regardless, they still uses a significant amount of power which is why they are usually referred to as an ace in the hole; not even Command Styles with magical exhaustion and drain the body quite as much as Shotlocks can if they are used one after the other in rapid succession."

I took a deep breath and stretched, wincing at how my body protested even those slight movements. Donald and Goofy who had been watching rushed over and helped us to our feet before Donald cast cure, washing away the worst of our exhaustion. Sora sighed as the healing aura soothed away the bone deep exhaustion he was feeling and stretched. I rolled my shoulders and tilted my neck from side to side, sighing at the now-pain-free feeling and thanked Donald.

Merlin gave us a smile and clapped his hands together in order to gain our attention, "Well, young keyblade wielders, it seems that I have done all I can at the moment. The time has come for you to continue your journey."

I blinked, "How long have we been here?"

Merlin closed his eyes for a moment, "Several hours."

Sora near face-faulted at that and yelped, "What?! That long? We need to get moving and meet Cid, make sure the navigation gummi is installed, find Traverse Town's keyhole..."

He trailed off as he realized how much there was left to do.

Merlin chuckled, "Don't worry and doubt yourself now, you have much to do, but I have a feeling that you both are capable of dealing with it."

Sora and I both unconsciously straightened at the praise.

He was right, we weren't just able to save the worlds.

We WOULD save the worlds.

"Before you go," He continues, "You may want to show that gem in your pocket to the Fairy Godmother, she may be able to help you make use of it."

* * *

After learning that we had a summon gem - basically the remnants of a strong-hearted individual whose world had fallen but were strong enough that they became entrapped in stone rather than be lost with their world - and being told the best way to restore them to normal was to save the worlds, we walked out of Merlin's Alley to enter back into the Third District. Heartless began to form and we all took our respective stances when they suddenly were cut cleanly in half. We blinked and looked up only to see a familiar figure.

My heart leapt with hope and Sora jaw dropped as we saw who it was.

Riku stood casually with a falchion-esque blade that resembles a black demonic/bat wing with a blue cat-like eye, "There you are." He said smiling slightly, "What's going on?"

"Riku!" Sora and I chorused in relief.

Sora reached towards Riku's face and began to pull it as though to verify it was flesh.

Riku swatted his hand away with a slightly irritated expression, "Hey, cut it out."

"Is it really you?" Sora asked, hands still outstretched slightly, "I'm not dreaming this time?"

"I hope not," Riku snorted, as he ran a hand through his hair, "Took me forever to find you."

"Riku," I greeted joyfully - seeing him alive was probably the most uplifting thing I had seen since this whole journey had begun - pulling him into a one-armed hug before bumping his fist with my own, "You have no idea how much we had been going through to find you."

Riku raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to inquire when Sora cut in, "Wait a second, where's Kairi?"

Riku and I blinked before a confused expression crossed Riku's face as he glanced between the two of us, "Isn't she with you?"

I shook my head mournfully and Sora looked down, blue eyes dull.

Riku looked worried for a split-second before I saw him smile encouragingly, "Well, don't worry. I'm sure she made it off the island too. We're free and hey, she might even be looking for us now. We'll all be together again soon, you'll see. Just leave everything to me. I know this -"

Suddenly Sora was behind him and we saw shadows writhing into nothingness as Sora was posed like he just cut something down.

"Leave it to who?" He asked with a cheeky grin.

"Sora, w-what?" Riku stuttered, a bit caught off guard at Sora's speed.

"We've both been searching for you." I chuckled at Riku's surprised look, "Got some help along the way."

Riku turned to look at the duck wizard and dog knight, "Who are they?"

Donald stepped forward proudly, "Ahem. My name is-"

"We've visited so many places and so many worlds, looking for you!" Sora cut in excitedly.

I gave Riku a sidelong look and he grinned at the rueful smile I gave him.

Sora was always excitable like that.

Riku smiled, "Well, what do you know. I never would've guessed."

Goofy stepped forward and rested a his hands on Sora's shoulders, "Oh, and guess what? Sora's a keyblade master, Niji too!"

"Who would've thought it?" Donald harrumphed.

"Hey!" Sora cried indignantly, "What's that mean?"

"So..." Riku said, holding up Sora's keyblade, "This is called a keyblade?"

I blinked, Riku had swiped it pretty fast, I almost missed it.

"Huh?" Sora yelped, "Hey give that back!"

Sora swiped and ended tripping over himself as Riku skipped back with a playful smile, "Catch."

He tossed the keyblade back to Sora, who caught it with a quiet , "Woah."

"You coming along right?" I queried, "Bet if we work together, we can find Kairi all the sooner."

"Yeah!" Sora added, "We've got this awesome rocket! Wait till you see it!"

"No, he can't come!" Donald interjected.

"Donald!" I snapped before turning back to Riku, "Sorry 'bout him... He's a bit..."

Sora began to argue with Donald over allowing Riku to come.

"Small team?" Riku filled it with an unamused arched eyebrow.

I shrugged, "Not really, I think he just like to stay by the book as much as possible. But he's a awesome mage, and Goofy can pack a mean wallop and is really nice. Basically we don't have a problem but Donald likes to fight."

Riku nodded to himself, "I see. So really? A rocket?"

"A rocket-ship." I agreed, "You need one to get through the worlds. I can give you a crash course in driving if your interested."

"I'd take you up on that, but I actually don't need to use a ship." Riku replied, "Landed somewhere and some lady gave me a trip here using a portal."

"Really?" I asked, that was probably quicker, but I still wanted us to stick together, " I still think we should work together, it'd be best. So how about it? Interested on coming along?"

Riku frowned at Sora, "Sounds like you guys don't want me."

I slapped him lightly upside the head, "Don't say something so stupid! I already said it's fine, we'd been looking for you high and low. We were worried sick, you should've seen Sora when we couldn't find you or Kairi. Hell, we crashed our rocket into a world because we didn't want to skip it in case you were there. We nearly got shot and sliced by some jerk with a machete just to make sure we could search every place just for you and Kairi."

Riku's eyes widened before darkening in anger, "What?"

I closed my eyes, remembering Clayton's lifeless stare, "He got crushed by a heartless... I wasn't fast enough to... it won't happen again."

Riku put a hand on my shoulder, brow furrowed in concern, "You okay?"

I plastered on a smile, "I'm managing... about how you got here though, how did you get to Traverse Town? We'd scoured the districts but didn't find you anywhere. Where did you end up?"

Riku was about to reply when Sora called out my name, "Niji, help me out!"

"Donald." I said, turning to the duck, "I don't see why Riku shouldn't come. He has a weapon, we just found him, and more of us would make our chances all that much better. Besides, it's not like we lack room."

Donald sighed and Goofy suddenly called out, "Hey! He's gone!"

I whirled and saw an empty patch of air where Riku had been standing a moment ago.

"Riku?" Sora called out in dismay before growing sullen, "Nice going."

"Was it really that big of a deal Donald?" I grumbled.

Donald turned his head to the side, but sighed, "Sorry."

Sora seemed mollified, "Oh well. At least he's okay. Who knows, maybe we'll run into Kairi soon too!"

I looked around but sighed as I saw no trace of Riku, "We can look for him after we talk to Cid and find the Keyhole."


	18. Chapter 18

**As always, all credit to respective owners!**

 **P.S. And remember, reviews are loved and appreciated!**

 **P.P.S Please only constructive criticism, if you think my story is crap, PM me (if you must); if you have a idea you think I might like, PM me. Credit will be given.**

 **-Y.A.R.N.**

* * *

Despite the fact that both Sora and I wanted to see if we could catch a trace of Riku, Donald and Goofy both manage to convince us that it was time to get moving. We both swept our gazes over the plaza with longing but followed. We walked up to the abandoned house that Cid had mentioned and walked in. The place was lit with a warm glow and although boxes had been stacked up against the wall and it looked as though it was half complete, it was a place I could definitely see as a residence. However, we could tell that there was a problem going on at the moment. We walked up to Cid who was discussing something with Leon; both of them had grimaces on their face and I noticed Leon was clenching his fists tightly as anger burned in his eyes. Aerith was frowning heavily, looking pensive while Yuffie was absently twirling a shuriken in her hand and had her mouth drawn in a thin line.

"Um..." I began, shifting slightly at the feeling of tension in the room, "Did we come at a bad time?"

Cid shook his head and turned to our group, "You guys ever hear of Maleficent? I hear she's in town."

I turned to Donald, Goofy, and Sora, all of whom looked as clueless as I did.

"Who is she?" Sora inquired.

Leon made a sound of annoyance in his throat, "She's the reason this town is full of heartless. Don't take her lightly."

I stiffened at the ominous warning while Sora shifted in worry.

Leon had soundly thrashed us when we first met him, and judging by how he hadn't even been taking us seriously and more or less toying with us. We were stronger than before but I had no doubt in my mind that Leon was still out of our league if was just me and Sora again. I remembered how Cloud had been stronger than I could have ever hoped to have taken on alone at the time. We had been able to overwhelm him and even then he hadn't exactly been a walk in the park. If Leon was wary enough of her to say that she wasn't to be taken lightly...

Needless to say, she wasn't someone I wanted the 'pleasure' of dealing with, or at least not anytime soon.

"She's been using the heartless for years." Aerith added.

We turned to look at her incredulously.

"What?!" Sora exclaimed.

"Years?" I repeated in shock, "She can and has been controlling the heartless for years? How the heck do you even begin control the heartless? Let alone do it for YEARS?"

"We lost our world, thanks to her." Leon said quietly, frustration lacing his voice.

"One day," Cid cut in, "A swarm of heartless took over our world!"

Leon ran a hand from his his forehead to his chin, finger twitching to run along the scar on his face, "That was nine years ago..."

Cid rubbed his chin, "I got out of that mess and came here with these guys."

Donald crossed his arms and scowled, "That's awful."

Leon sighed and said, "Our ruler was a wise man named Ansem. He dedicated his life to studying the heartless."

Cid picked up after Leon left it at that, "His reports should tell us how to get rid of the heartless."

"So... any ideas on the journals' location?" I said, remembering about what he said before.

"We don't know anything new." Leon replied, "It was scattered when our world as destroyed, as I said."

Cid scowled sourly, "I'm sure Maleficent's got most of the pages."

As we talked, I couldn't shake the feeling of eyes on my back, and a sense of foreboding when they were gone.

* * *

We left Cid's house after hearing about a rumor about the clock tower and ringing the bell 3 times. I wasn't usually one for rumors and unsubstantiated word-of-mouth talk, but ever since I had been thrown into the worlds that I had been, I knew that most tales had a nugget of truth (and that really, most of the things happening somehow seemed to fly in the face of any sort of logic I knew of), so I followed Sora's lead as we made out way to the clock tower. Besides, we still had to seal this world's keyhole, and I - at the very least - wasn't leaving until I found it and sealed it shut. From what I understood, Traverse Town was a majorly important world since the worlds had been falling. Any stragglers or those lost would usually end up here and try to make a home here in the event of their world vanishing. If this world fell, then there was no telling what could happen to the survivors of fallen worlds if this vanished, and that wasn't even counting the ones who already found a place in Traverse Town.

Would they simply end up in another world?

What if they started messing with the world borders?

Would they be lost to the void or darkness?

Battling through the Second District to the insides of the clock tower was relatively easier since we all took out the green heartless before letting Donald sweep away the large bodies (and Sora summoning Jungle King to his hand despite not having to summon The Kingdom Key and then attach the keychain to The Kingdom Key; a neat trick that saved some seconds). I was tempted to try out some of my Shotlocks as well as Command Styles, but if what Cid and the others said was correct than I wanted to keep any of my strength hidden in case she was watching us. I learned that there was plenty of magic out in the worlds, and that was ignoring the basics that Donald taught us. I didn't want anyone to be able to catch me off guard by figuring out a way to counter my strongest attacks because I had been busting them out like party favors.

Plus, I was sure that if there was one common theme in this entire mess of an adventure, they was a super heartless that was waiting to drop right in front of the keyhole when we found it. It was probably the only thing I COULD count on in this situation, so I wanted to make sure that I saved up my energy for that. The heartless surged in the clocktower and traveling through that was mildly irritating as we had already had to do this back on our first visit, but thankfully Donald and Goofy were more than enough to even the odds. We managed to make our way up the wall to the clocktower's roof thanks to a ladder and made short work of the heartless that had been guarding it and then bashed our way through the wood that had been blocking the bell-rope. Sora tugged it and the bell rang loudly, echoing out across the districts. I walked over the edge of the clock tower and saw the fountain mural in the plaza down below rotate and shift.

"Sora," I said, "Do that again!"

He nodded and tugged the rope, bell ringing in tandem with the wall mural once again shifting to the right as it spun.

"There gotta be more than just making the mural change..." I muttered.

Sora yanked and the bell tolled loudly, the ringing echoing over the silent plaza.

The wall mural shifting and I saw as the third and final spin revealed a pale blue ethereal glow surrounding a keyhole.

"There!" I called, "It's Traverse Town's keyhole!"

Sora jogged over the edge and brightened upon seeing it, "Alright! Let's seal it off!"

We quickly ran down from the clocktower and approached the fountain, I called Abaddon Plasma to my hand and jogged toward the keyhole only for a familiar shape to crash into the ground in front of the keyhole. Sora skidded to a stop behind me and called his keyblade to his hand as Donald and Goofy both summoned their weapons.

"Oh joy." I deadpanned, "Look who came back out to play..."

The Guard Armor torso and limbs hovered in front of us as the head came crashing down on the torso with a resounding clang before the heartless began straightening and looking at us. I scoffed at the hulking heartless, we had beaten it before and we were much stronger now than we were back then.

We could take it easily.

It flung both of it's fists at out group and we dove out of the way and summoned our respective weapons in our hands, setting ourselves into our stances. Sora didn't dither and launched himself at the main body of the Guard Armor, striking it with Jungle King and Hurricane Periods. Goofy moved to cover his back and guard against the legs that began to kick out while Donald and I both began beating and blasting the hands. The Guard armor began to shake and fall apart — literally — against the onslaught as we were determined to destroy it before it could even begin to properly retaliate. Sora knocked it's head back and it froze before all the body parts shivered before lifting up and crashing into the torso, making all the pieces of the heartless collapse in a heap in front of the keyhole. We all blinked at the unmoving pieces, confused at the short duration of the fight. We were definitely stronger, but there was no way we just beat the boss heartless just like that!

Right?

Sora scratched his head and readied to blast the prone body with magic to make sure it was gone, "So... is that it?"

The pieces of the heartless began to shake and rattle; I shot Sora a mild glare, "You just HAD to say that before you finished it off didn't you?"

The body lifted and the greaves rose in the air and the 'feet' bent until they looked more like pincer-shaped claws. The gauntlets shifted till they were vertical and the former hands pressed flat against the ground. The body of the guard armor shifted till it was upside down and the head lifted off the ground to once again land on its now-wide shoulders. The visor of the guard armor slid down and two yellow beady eyes could be seen from the darkness spilling out from the helm. The air felt heavier as the Guard Armor shifted into the Opposite Armor and the feeling of darkness radiating off the heartless boss of Traverse Town went up a notch.

The Opposite Armor limbs spun around it in a orbit, hands opening and closing as its yellow eyes scanned us. In a flash, its fists were hurtling towards us and legs spinning at us as all four of its limbs shot forward like rockets.

I threw myself to side and let out a cry of, "Thunder!"

Several bolts of electricity fell from the sky and struck the Opposite Armor, lightning crackling up and down its torso and limbs in synchronization. Despite the attack, the Opposite Armor barely reacted beyond a slight shiver as the lightning died down. Its limbs tore their way out of the floor and began to fly at us once again. I rolled out of way of a flying leg and Sora swept past me with a heavy overhand strike onto the attacking limb. The hand skidded and bounced on the ground as Sora sent it away. I saw the torso spinning towards us but knew that I wouldn't be able to block it with a standard block. Instead — in an act of pure impulse and desperation not to be hit by a stronger version of the spinning blow — I stomped and shoved my hands outwards with a sharp shout of effort, launching a Stun Impact.

The torso clashed against the dome of energy just as it expanded from me; crashing against it as the torso struggled to break through the layer of energy I had erected. Sparks of pink, yellow, and orange energy scattered as the attacks ground against each other. I gritted my teeth as I felt the power of the Stun Impact begin to wane, it wasn't meant to be used as a barrier; while it might be good enough to block a quick and powerful attack, prolonged attacks were a bad idea to use it against. Fortunately, Sora wasn't blind to my plight and had begun charging his newest technique, one he had been saving for just this sort of opponent. I managed to jump out of the way of the torso as my Stun Impact finally faded and the torso tore through where I had just been; Sora leapt into the air and pointed his keyblade at the guard armor aiming for the Opposite Armor, focusing on the head and torso. The tip began to glow with a near-blinding light as energy began to swirl and gather around Sora's keyblade.

"Ragnarock!" Sora roared.

A barrage of energy projectiles erupted from the tip of his keyblade like falling stars, twisting and spiraling before hitting their mark. Explosions rocked the heartless as its hands and legs were also struck by a respectable amount of fallout as bolts that failed to hit the main body of the heartless curved back and struck the limbs. The limbs trembled as cracks began to form from the joints and travel up and down the greaves and gauntlets from the damage. Even the torso began to sport shallow cracks and grooves where the blasts had hit it.

"Now!" I yelled, "Get the limbs while it's stunned!"

Donald began to cry out his spells, "Fira! Thundara!"

Bursts of magic erupted from his staff — stronger than his usual attacks but not quite as potent as the liquid fire sphere he used against Cloud — and struck one of the legs while lightning rained down on one of the arms. They shattered the already cracked limbs while Goofy and I closed in on the remaining two. I stuck the leg with a Zantetsuken while Goofy launched a Knocksmash on the gauntlet. The weakened limbs finally gave out as they shattered into pieces of metal that fell down and melted away into darkness. I smirked, now we just how we just had to deal with the spin attacks from the heartless' torso and send this thing back into the darkness.

It flipped its torso back and pointed the hollow of its torso at us. Purple light began to gather and the air filled with energy while the smell of ozone filled the air.

"Well nuts..." I mumbled, "That's a new one."

We were moving before it fired and barely got out of the way before it fired a orb of purple energy that exploded in the plaza. It didn't have any limbs, but apparently range wasn't out of this enhanced heartless' abilities.

But it wasn't fast.

The cannon's blast was powerful and the projectile itself was pretty quick and probably wouldn't be easy to deflect.

But it was using took time to charge and that was what we needed to capitalize on, if we hit it while it was charging and then retreated so we could evade the blast, we could beat it.

"Sora!" I called as it began charging it's cannon again, "You good?"

Sora was breathing heavily, not quite panting, but definitely short on breath, "Ragnarock took more energy than I thought it would. What's up?"

"We need to attack when it's charging," I shouted at our group, feeling the air once again thicken as the cannon was almost ready, "When it fires, we hit it with everything we got! No shotlocks though, we need to conserve out energy if it manages to charge another shot."

Sora nodded and we all dived out of the way of another blast of energy that sent a plume of dust skyward. Donald and I zigzagged through the plaza, launching spells while Goofy and Sora moved in bash the torso. Even while I was fighting, my mind was observing my growing abilities; my magic had definitely grown stronger as the blasts of fire and ice let out more noticeable fluctuations in the temperature as they were launched and had a more damaging impact when they landed. The Opposite Armor was definitely feeling the attacks as its previously shallow cracks began to deepen while bits of shadowy smoke leaked from its head. It tried to move back and charge its cannon once again, but Sora and Goofy refused to give it any room to breathe.

Something was giving way, and it wasn't us.

Sora leapt into the air an angled his keyblade and let out a shout of, "Sonic Blade!"

He lanced through the air, using his landing from one strike to pivot and hit the Opposite armor once again. Several strikes of the powerful attack later, and the Opposite Armor could hold on no longer.

Its head collapsed into its torso and the it let out a large heart as the body began to dissolve into nothingness. I breathed a sigh of relief and watched as Sora walked up to the keyhole and raised his keyblade into the air before pointing it toward the now gleaming keyhole. Light gathered at the tip of his keyhole before it shot a beam of light into the keyhole and — with a loud click — the keyhole to the heart of Traverse Town was sealed shut. The image of the now sealed keyhole crumbled away from the fountain's face which revealed a mural of a flower surrounded by butterflies.

"Well," I said as I twirled my keyblade before dismissing it with a smirk, "I suppose that settles that."


	19. Chapter 19

**All credit to respective owners!**

 **P.S. Also my transcribing of this chapter to my new device from my old device was a bit... wonky so try to ignore and spaces and odd paragraph gaps that may occur during the chapter, I did my best to address them, but my editing skills are not top-tier. I hope you understand.**

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 **-Y.A.R.N.**

* * *

We wandered back to the first district to see Cid waiting for us and telling us that he had installed the navigation gummi in our ship. We all thanked him and he mentioned that the navigation gummi did lead us through a wormhole that would apparently lessen the distance between us and the new worlds that it was leading us to. We exchanged worried looks at that as we had no idea if wormhole required any adjustments or bolstering to our gummi-ship or needed some special shielding. Fortunately Cid told us he did a look-over of our ship and said it would handle the passage like a champ, the wormhole wasn't any more dangerous, it was simply a shortcut. It may be a bit of a shake and shudder, but it shouldn't rip our ship apart or something like that.

* * *

With that assurance given, we all got into the gummi ship and blasted off of from Traverse Town back into space. While Goofy set the auto-pilot to take us through the wormhole and to the next world, Donald decided to teach us one of the more defensive spells in case we needed to shield ourselves from more powerful attacks that were too much from just our keyblade or coming from our blind spot. Sora and I agreed almost immediately on the basis that the more defensive options we had, the better off we'd be in the long run. With that in mind Donald decided to show us the first tier of wind spells.

Donald demonstrated by raising his staff and shouting at the ceiling, "Wind!"

Almost immediately a miniature whirlwind rose up around the duck sorcerer's body and the winds formed a visible haze of rippling air. No not quite rippling but spinning around the duck as it tugged at our clothing and ruffled our hair. Donald offered to let us take a swing at the attack and Sora and I looked a bit apprehensive but complied. To our amazement, when we swung our keyblades, they glanced off the tornado of air that surrounded the duck sorcerer, keeping said duck safe from our attacks.

"Is that the novice level?" I inquired, gingerly pressing my hand against the air and finding it solid like an invisible wall before it pushed my hand to the side.

The duck sorcerer shook his head, "This is actually Aerora, the level below the Tier 3 spell Aeroga, which is usually the fastest to cast when in battle. You probably noticed some of your magic spells getting stronger, which means your spells probably have at least reached Tier 2 in potency, but new spells will usually start at the Tier 1 level and grow alongside usage. Aero as a defensive spell won't be able to block really powerful attacks, but at the very least it can blunt them and deflect some of the weaker attacks; as it grows, it defends against more."

"Is there more than Tier 3?" Sora inquired curiously.

Donald nodded, "Tier 4 spell are similar to command styles that repeated usage of a Tier 3 spell will make it easier to build up the magic necessary for a Tier 4 version of that spell. Your magic isn't strong enough to sustain a Tier 4 magic spell yet, that's something you just have to train and practice for. There are even higher levels, but they are really strong and'll knock out a user for hours."

"Like..?" I prompted.

Donald looked at the floor and muttered, "Flares."

I blinked, "What tier are those?"

Donald shook his head, "Don't ask. It's not a spell I will ever show unless there's no choice. Flare is already a cut above simple fire spells, Megaflare is even more powerful and is like a explosion, Terraflare could burn someone to ashes, and Zettaflare... there wouldn't be a trace left, no ashes, no nothing. Devastating, but not just to an enemy, the price you'd pay for those spells would leave weaker magicians comatose, and others utterly exhausted to the point of total collapse."

I looked at the firm expression on Donald's face and shrugged, it was his choice ultimately. If Donald — official sorcerer of a kingdom — wasn't going to teach us spells of that caliber, then there was probably a very, very, VERY good reason.

Ah well, thoughts for a later date.

"Wind!" I shouted as I raised my keyblade.

* * *

I panted as I recovered after a trying session of failed wind casting.

Which made all too frustrating that Sora was having a much easier time with wind magic than I was. I personally felt it was because Sora himself was a free spirit, he went where he wanted and did what he felt was right. Though Sora was allowing himself a bit of fun as he would send swirls of wind to different areas of the room, a large smile on his face. Sora had asked that I try it out — with everything I had — after he formed his own Aero barrier and I swung my keyblade at the barrier of wind as hard as I could, only for it to crash through the wind shield. I shouted a warning and tried to pull back and adjust my attack as Sora let out a squawk of surprise and was sent down skidding as the flat of my keyblade struck him in the side. Sora had glared at me as I tried to apologize about hitting him.

Wind magic — even in Tier 1 form — was difficult to keep in the shape of a all-around shield even if 'visualizing' and feeling the wind wasn't hard. On the island it would caress your face and dance through your clothing, each breath taken was you pulling air into your lungs. The problem was, air was never meant to be contained or held in place, it wanted to swirl through the air, gamboling playfully through wherever it arrived.

Then again, maybe I was going about my usage wrong, Sora was able to form a aero barrier after just a few tries.

I was trying to compress the wind to stay stay still around me — to solidify — but that wasn't at all what Donald had showed us. His barrier had the wind whip around him like a tornado and he was the eye of the storm. Maybe I didn't need to dam it up and hold it but to let it flow and just direct the movement.

I closed my eyes and thrust my keyblade into the sky with a shout of "Wind!"

This time, I tugged at the air to move it around me, spiraling and winding like a spring. I tried to picture the image of a spinning top except that it was hollow in the middle. I opened my eyes and saw the wind swirling around me to from a barrier and sighed in relief. Magic was pretty tricky at times, but it was rewarding to be able to pull off when it was finally finished.

* * *

Sora and I sparred a bit before Donald called us up as we were approaching the wormhole, Sora and I both dashed up the stairs to see the spiral purple cloud-like energy that was the opening of the wormhole. I quickly sat down and strapped myself down, Sora hurrying to do the same as the opening drew closer and closer. Right before we hit it, I squeezed my eyes shut, gripped the armrests of my seat, and clenched my teeth behind my lips. I was ready for the impact of entering the portal.

The ship entered and immediately the ship shook and shuddered as the portal's energy dug at the ship's mild shielding. When it stopped however, and alarm began to blare through the ship's system.

"Oh no!" Goofy cried, "An asteroid field!"

To my distress, he was absolutely right about that, apparently the wormhole cut through some sort of asteroid field and we were now somewhere in the middle of moving meteors.

Donald immediately began to run to the front of the ship and grabbed the controls, "We need someone on the guns!"

"Guns?!" I yelped as we began to weave through the rocks flying past us, "We have guns?" Sora's seat suddenly swiveled to the side with Sora letting out a surprised shout, "Wha —"

A single stick with two triggers and a screen popped up in front of him as it showed a targeting reticule and a view of the front of the ship.

"Press the front button for forward lasers!" quacked Donald in a panic, "The button on top for homing rockets!"

Sora began to tug on the stick as he blasted rocks around them so Donald wouldn't have to do and excessively fancy flying so the asteroid wouldn't pummel us and blow up our gummi ship. Every second seemed to be a minute as I kept my eyes shut against the barrage of rocks, I may have known how to fly a gummi ship through the basics of a smooth flight, but there was no way I would be able to pull off the maneuvers that Donald was doing. Either way, it seemed that Sora, Donald, and Goofy had everything covered as best as they could and that there was no need for me to do anything other than hang onto my seat and pray.

After what seemed like an eternity of exploding rocks, upside-downies, and various frantic shouts (which probably shaved years off my life), we cleared the rocks and our navigation gummi indicated that the exit to the world was coming up. I breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that we wouldn't have to go through that sort of experience ever again. I sighted the orange exit portal and Donald skillfully maneuvered our craft into the portal and after a jarring shudder, we were suddenly in front of a new world. We brought our gummi ship to hover over the world and were teleported down onto the world below.

* * *

The world was basically a sandstorm waiting to happen if a moderately strong gust of wind managed to get enough traction, if you asked my opinion. We had barely crossed into the city gates when several heartless materialized out of thin air. While there were the vanguard of regular shadows, there were now heartless that looked like desert bandits equipped with scimitars and vests, turban included. We dropped into our stances and braced ourselves as the heartless converged on us. I ducked away from a sword aiming to decapitate me and thrust Abaddon Plasma into the heartless gut before ducking away from a shadow trying to tackle me. Goofy blocked a blade from slashing him and used his Tornado technique to send several bandit heartless flying into their fellows. Donald fired off a round of blizzard magic that froze the bandit heartless solid as Sora shattered them with a round of Strike Raid. I frowned as I dismissed my keyblade and the remnants of the heartless that were frozen melted into shadows.

"Didn't expect a welcoming committee to greet us right out the ship..." I muttered dryly.

Sora looked around, looking a bit wary, "I can feel the darkness is a bit stronger here... but it feels almost... controlled?"

"Do you think Maleficent could be here?" Goofy questioned as he looked around, "She has been controlling the heartless for a while right?"

Donald brandished his staff, "She'd better not be for her sake!"

I didn't know how to answer, it was possible with the fact that she had control over the heartless, but she was supposed to be steeped in darkness, able to drown a world in it. While there was a level of intensity to the darkness here that was a cut above we had seen before, it was nothing like I would expect from someone with that power. If it was her, we would be able to handle it, but if it wasn't her? It just emphasized how much stronger we had to get if we wanted to save the worlds.

"I don't know," I said as I looked down the street, "but I think it'd be better to stay on guard just in case, we don't know what we might face."

No one seemed to argue with that and we all walked down the street, towards what seemed to be a marketplace. I got the distinct impression that it would usually be bustling with how the wares were all set to be sold, but it seemed like the people had cleared out in a hurry, not caring if they left their stuff behind to be stolen. Our group all glanced around only to immediately drop into our battle stances as more bandit heartless materialized to attack us. One jumped a foot into the air before rolling through the air at us with his blade like a yoyo. I brought my keyblade up to block the strike but was nearly bowled over from the force of the attack. I managed to push myself to the side and out of the way of the attack and aimed my keyblade at him before casting a blizzard spell that blasted it into oblivion.

If the heartless appeared and began to attack people at random, it would explain why the people cleared out and were now in hiding.

Sora ducked and leapt away from the swings and twisted out fo the way of a bandit's heavy overhand swing only to slash the heartless in the back. Donald blasted a heartless out of the air with a cast of Fira and Goofy knocked another into the air as a setup for Donald. With our combined teamwork, we quickly cleared the marketplace of heartless and waited to see if anymore surprised waited for us. After a few seconds we straightened and dismissed our weapons, feeling the moment for battle pass. We headed left at the market seeing as the right led to a dead end and in front of use was the seemingly empty area of some large doorway, probably some sort of castle gate. As we walked to the left, I frowned at the dead end when a voice called out.

"Hello? Who's there?" A feminine voice asked timidly.

A rather beautiful woman with tanned skin, lustrous raven hair, golden jewelry, and light blue garments stepped out from behind some boxes as she gave us a once over. She looked scared if anything, sure the heartless were around and we weren't exactly cool in the heated desert, but she looked like she had been watching over her shoulder for someone the entire time and was beginning to truly tire of it. We introduced ourselves when I asked why she was hiding out here, she explained that she was the daughter and princess of the former sultan and that her father had been deposed by his royal vizier, Jafar. Apparently, this Jafar guy had apparently gained evil powers and then used his newfound abilities to overthrow the Sultan and then put the city on lockdown so Jasmine couldn't escape the city without notice. She didn't disclose exactly why he wanted her so badly, but judging by the fact she was genuinely gorgeous and young, I was sure it wasn't anything containing goodwill.

"He's been desperately looking for something - something he called the 'Keyhole'." She informed us.

We all inhaled sharply, that was not good news; if Jafar was searching for the keyhole and he was the one directing the heartless - which was entirely plausible since the guy seemed like he was more interested in power and domination rather than actually ruling fairly - then he could drown the world in darkness. He had apparently tried to keep Jasmine prisoner, but she was helped by some guy who had apparently gone to the desert to take care of something.

"Oh, I do hope Aladdin's alright..." She fretted.

"Aladdin?" A smarmy voice interrupted, "Where might I find this street rat?"

We looked up to the ledge on our left to see a tall man with a mustache and goatee and dressed in red and black regal robes and had turban wrapped around his head. In his hand was a snake-headed staff which eyes glowed an ominous red as he gave us a superior-geared once over and scoffed. He gave us a disgusted look, and promptly focused on Jasmine with a sleazy smirk.

"Jasmine," He drawled as his tone turned more patronizing, "allow me to find you more... suitable company, my dear princess. These little rats won't do you see."

Sora gestured his hand towards the bazaar, "Jasmine, run!"

Jasmine paused to nod, give Jafar a half-disgusted, half-angry look and then bolt down the way we came. Our group dropped into our respective stances as we eyed Jafar, waiting for him to make the first move.

"Ah," Jafar hummed as he saw our weapons, "The ones who hold the key..."

With a small 'hmph' of dismissal, he swept away and headed towards the bazzar from the ledge he was standing on. We twitched towards him but three bandit heartless swirled into existence and blocked the way as a shadow heartless suddenly began to pile random bits of garbage to block the doorway. We quickly tore our way through the heartless but it was simply too late for us to pursue, Jafar was gone and Jasmine was out of sight as well. In all fairness, it was probably for the best that Jasmine wasn't with us, she wouldn't have been able to escape while leading all four of us behind her. We got back to the bazaar only to find more heartless to contend with; we fought our way back to the city gates and decided to backtrack to the city outskirts in the hope we would gain a bit of a reprieve from the battles. The heat of the world as well as the waves of heartless were far more tiring than any of us thought.

The endless expanse of the desert yawned before us and I gulped uncomfortably at the thought of even trying to cross any distance through that lifeless wasteland.

Just then, we heard a fluttering in the wind like a banner that was dancing in the air. We all looked up towards the noise to see a literal carpet flying towards us, I blinked and rubbed at my eyes. I expected to think it was some sort of hallucination but the carpet landed on its 'feet' and seemed to be expecting us to do something as it waited.

"Um..." I began, "Can we help you?"

The carpet jumped up and down in what I supposed was excitement, so I took that as a yes.

"You want us to ride you somewhere?" Sora queried.

The carpet began to hop excitedly again and with a shrug we all boarded the carpet and took of with amazing speed towards the vast desert.


End file.
